Confidence
by Thornvixen
Summary: In which Lightning pangs for the seemingly woefully ignorant Fang a year after the end of XIII as Cocoon attempts to rebuild their world and new tensions arise. Rated T for swearing and suggestive themes.
1. Chapter 1

The thing about Fang that seemed to make her so, so, attractive was her confidence. That damn cocky sardonic grin that exuded confidence as she smirked.

The fact that would she would claim she was right until the end even if she was dead wrong just because she could. That "I'm a badass" confidence that Light didn't quite have enough assholery to pull it off. That was what made Fang almost irresistible to Light.

Her ability to be absolutely crazy that even Serah would make a comment about and Fang would happily tell her that she didn't care for the psycho-babble bullshit even if she secretly agreed with her.

She drove Light up the wall with every chance she got simply because she could and hey, Light was pretty amusing to her when she was pissed off. The fact that she would bait Light and know she would get a sound beating in return didn't dissuade her one bit. Nope, they both knew that a challenge was being made and someone would give in and get revenge later, or it would be settled then and there.

A solid sounding friendship now isn't it.

It had been over a year since it all happened. Vanille and Fang pulling away joining hands and then simply crystal. Crystal everywhere.

Lightning grinned as she watched Hope raise his boomerang in victory. He had led the party for the majority of the day and proved he had the right to. He ran over to her, noticing her grin and folded his weapon up.

"Did you see that Light?!" She quickly hid her grin and straightened, falling easily into a soldier stance.

"That's Sergeant Farron to you, Private Estheim." Six months ago, this would have dashed Hope's spirit in a second, but he shrugged and a smile slid onto his features.

"Sir! Yes, sir!" He saluted and stood completely still. Lightning glanced over to the other members, they were scrounging the kill and failed to notice where Hope had snuck off to.

"Cut it out, Hope." She punched his arm lightly. "You aren't supposed to be bothering me any ways." She glared at him, stepping back and crossing her arms.

"Oh come on Lightning. You know I can do this; it's all a formality. You're just worried I'll outrank you soon."

"Not on your life. Now get the rest of those idiots and let's report back. Serah is hosting some dinner party and if you're late, she'll blame me." Lightning rolled her eyes.

"Sir, yes, sir!" Hope saluted again, with less sarcasm then before, turned and started to jog back to the other Guardian Corps. Lightning grinned at his retreating back. He was still the same Hope but he had changed so much starting when he had demanded that he be allowed to join the Guardian Corps and go wherever Lightning went.

Eleven Months Ago

Cocoon was still livable, but barely. Nothing would ever be the same again. Even after being flown down to Gran Pulse, people wanted to turn it into nearly the same lifestyle that Cocoon had provided. They seemed to be succeeding. Lightning, once she had established herself a home in Oerba, had traveled to see Hope at the new city, at his request. She found him, hanging around outside a smaller version of his house in Palumpolum.

"Lightning!" He had run to her and hugged her tightly. She hugged him back for a second and then grabbed his shoulders pushing him back firmly. He hung his head down, staring down at the ground.

"What's wrong?" He looked up to meet her eyes for a second and looked away, staring at the crystallized Cocoon.

"My father. It's not that he doesn't love me, I know he does. It's just, he's helping the new city with his financial advice and that's great, but I sit here and do nothing all day. He won't let me join anything, not even to warn the troops what sort of creatures there are around here." He glanced back at her, his eyes troubled.

"You want me to convince him to let you help?" Lightning played dumb, Hope had to say what he wanted. His eyes flickered and he looked towards the glittering sphere.

"No, yes. I want to join the Guardian Corps." He made eye contact with her, she stared back, waiting for the rest. "In Oerba, with you." She dropped her arms from his shoulders and sighed softly. Oerba was one of the only places he could join the Guardian Corps, they were mainly being used for scouting purposes and occasionally guarding the towns. The new city had already made a defense group and while they worked together, it was clear they didn't want to be affiliated with the Corps.

She turned away from him and stared at Cocoon, looking to where Fang and Vanille were. They wouldn't have hesitated, though both of them might have teased him about it first.

"I'll help." She said softly, Hope's face lit up instantly. "But you have to tell him first. And he has to agree." He nodded fervently.

"Thanks Light."

They waited around until well after dark, sparring and talking. Hope wanted to hear all about Serah and Snow and where Dajh and Sazh had gone to, and Lightning wanted to make sure he hadn't let his skills go to waste. When Bartholomew returned, Hope made his case and after a long discussion where Lightning stood quietly and said nothing, he agreed to let Hope go back with Lightning to Oerba. She agreed to stay the night and they would head out in the morning. Bartholomew sent Hope to bed and looked over to Lightning.

"A word outside, please." She nodded and followed him out.

Outside the man stretched and placed his arms behind his head in a similar fashion to Snow, sighed and then dropped them.

"I know this is what he wants to do and that he wants to help. But I just got my son back." He paused, seeming unsure and continued on. "I have to let him live his own life." He looked at Lightning, who raised an eyebrow. "Will you take care of him? He looks up to you so much."

"I'll do my best." Lightning paused, wondering if she really needed to say anything else. Hope's prior knowledge of the area would serve him greatly making him a key asset in any patrol, Bartholomew didn't need to be told.

"That's all I can ask for."

When Hope came back with Lightning to Oerba, she offered to let him live with her. Snow had also offered but she quickly reminded him of how his new wife and him needed the time to just be together. Surprisingly, Hope had refused both offers and enrolled himself into the Guardian Corps training. He lived in a bunkhouse on the edge of Oerba with other new soldiers. Lightning had questioned him on this, he could have easily been hired without any protocol training, she would have been assigned to train him for two weeks and he would have been set. He insisted he wanted to earn his way up, without any advantages.

This choice had made life a living hell for Hope, he was picked on and treated brutally, the rich boy from the new city. He stuck it out though, not saying a word to anyone about it. Eventually, it stopped as he made friends and they realized that he had a right to be among soldiers. Lightning didn't find out for months later that he had been bullied and when she did, promptly decided those trainees could use a little extra training and a few more chores around camp.

"Sergeant Farron!" Hope yelled, bringing Lightning crashing back to the present. He had grown taller and put on some more muscle but he had a ways to go yet. He was fifteen and a bit now she shuddered to think of what he would look like at eighteen. His hair was cut short only about two inches long making him look older than he was. He ran towards her with three other soldiers following.

"Ready to head back now, sir-m'am." His face seemed neutral, though she could see the twinkle in his eyes. She nodded once and turned, heading back towards camp.

They reach camp an hour before dark. They paused at the chain link gate, looking to Lightning.

"Dismissed." They nodded and didn't move. "You all did well, I'll be reporting to General Amodar promptly." They broke out into smiles and scurried away. Hope leaned against the fence.

"Get going, soldier." She crossed her arms, she never wanted to seem as if she was favouring Hope. Hope looked at her and tilted his head.

"Light, do you think they're ever going to wake up?" Lightning felt her heart jump into her throat. She glanced over to the moon like crystal and looked back to Hope.

"Yes." She swallowed, hoping he wouldn't notice.

"Come on, Light." He implored. "I miss her so much, Fang too of course. But she was my best friend and always supported me."

"I know Hope, but." Hope cut her off.

"Do you think there's a way to wake them?" He shoved his hands into his pockets, gazing at the ground.

"I.. I don't know. It took five hundred years last time."

"You want Fang back just as much as I want Vanille." Hope accused, his eyes angry. "She was your best friend, calming you down when you lost it by sparring with you for hours, you always listening to her rant and rave."

"Yelling at me about it won't make them come back Hope. Sazh already went and tried to wake them. We're needed here, they'll come to this place first." Hope moved forward slightly, stopped and nodded as anger drained from his face.

"Sorry, I just" Lighting held up a hand.

"I know. Go get cleaned up, we still have a dinner party to attend and you are not skipping out on me."

"Meet you out front." Hope tossed the words over his shoulder as he walked in. Lightning sighed and almost jumped.

"Evening Sergeant Farron." General Amodar appeared from the shadows.

"General.." Lightning paused.

"I only saw part of that interaction, calm down. That boy has been hurting since the day he got here. Despite that, he is quite impressive. How did the patrol go?"

"Very well, he led most of it, but they all played their strengths and I wasn't necessary."

"Excellent, looks like we have some new corporals on our hands and a sergeant to boot." Lightning paled ever so slightly. Amodar laughed, not noticing.

"You'll be fine accepting a Lieutenant's role right? I know Estheim is young, but you can keep him in line."

"Thank you General." Amodar nodded and caught her eye.

"Comes with some days off and you have to use them. But not now, I hear you and the new sergeant have a dinner party to attend. Throw him a bone and go get him his new colours so he can show off. Night Lieutenant, see you Monday." Amodar turned and walked away, leaving a lightly stunned Lightning. She shrugged and decided it was best to go with it.

She turned and faced Cocoon and whispered quietly.

"Wake up. We all miss you."

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy XIII or any of the characters.

Story is rated T for swearing, alcohol, violence and suggestive themes.


	2. Chapter 2

Light shook her head slightly as she neared the front door to Serah and Snow's home. Hope was happily retelling parts of the mission that he thought she had missed and she was confirming as to whether she had seen them or not.

"And I pushed Marks out of the way because his gun jammed and he couldn't figure out how to fix it.." Hope glanced over to Lightning, noticing her shaking head.

"Light?" Light's head snapped up towards him. He smiled uncertainly. "Are you okay? I don't mean to bore you, I'm just really excited." He stopped walking and stuck out his right shoulder where the blue arrows gleamed on a new jacket.

"You're not boring me Hope. It's just.." She glanced up towards the icicle that was Cocoon briefly and brought her eyes to meet his. "Amodar gave me a couple of days off, I have no idea what I'm going to do with them. And I would rather check the southern perimeter." Light trailed off, unsure. She looked towards the door and smiled.

"Let's go show off those new baby blues, okay?"

...

Their arrival into the house had been the usual mass greeting of Serah running to Lightning and Hope with loud greetings and hugs. This escalated when Snow spotted Hope's new jacket and almost knocked him over with his enthusiastic slap on the back. Lightning used the distraction to sneak into the kitchen and pour herself a glass of red.

"You can't hide here all night, Claire. I won't allow it." Serah walked in, smiling and hugged Lightning again.

"How's the house been? No problems?" Lightning inquired as a distraction, slowly sipping her wine. Serah sighed and put her hands on her hips.

"Fine Claire, Snow makes sure everything works and is safe. If you are so paranoid about it, why didn't move in with us? Here is a lot better compared to where you're staying." Serah glared slightly at her sister, threw her hands up in mock exasperation and grinned. She skipped towards the stove, opening the door and checking on the appetizers. "Seriously, it's fine. Stop bugging me about it or I'll send Snow to help you with your place."

Light sipped her wine and decided to let it go, since Serah did have a point. Snow and Serah were currently residing in a house that had been fixed up since being abandoned centuries ago. Unfortunately not being near the big city had took its toll and they often redid the houses in a big rush job, making them look similar to old Cocoon homes and not really taking enough time to do the work properly. Snow had fixed the plumbing four times now, and fixed faulty wiring a dozen times. Lightning had to admit that he was a decent handy man, and probably wouldn't mind him being sent over to help though she would never say it to his face.

Her own home was farther outside of the city facing the lake. It was an old beat up house that hadn't made the list for remodeling. She was okay with that, she liked the look of the Oerba houses and thought it a shame they wouldn't leave more in their cultural state. She had managed to get some people to come in and do some basic fixes, but nothing more than that. Too much to do and not enough people.

"Serah, Serah!" Hope came rushing in, sliding on the linoleum floor. "Snow says to get your appetizers out real quick, Gadot will be here in ten."

"I thought he wasn't off work for another half hour. Take these back out, Hope." She all but threw a bowl of guacamole and chips to him and began lifting things out of the oven. Lightning moved over and helped her place things on trays.

"I never understand why you go through the effort of calling this a dinner party when all Snow ever does is invite everyone he possibly knows and Gadot brings pizza despite what you make."

"I like cooking thank you very much." Serah paused and grinned at Lightning. "And the advantage is that if I mess something up, it will probably get eaten anyways." She handed Lightning a tray. "Go be social, okay? It won't hurt you." She nudged Lightning towards the door. "And you could be nice and take those around to people!" She called as Lightning walked away.

The party got louder and louder as the night went on, but no one bothered to complain most likely because all of the neighbors were there too. Lightning had ditched the tray the first chance she got, poured herself a new glass of wine and spent most of her time leaning against the wall watching other people. She did manage to have a decent discussion with Gadot about security in town and any trouble they had been having. Guardian Corps was providing security from beasts and perceived outside threats, while NORA had taken on the policing bit inside the town, keeping people in line and such. Mostly, they had been helping people rebuild homes or new buildings but lately as more and more people moved to the town, police work had become more necessary and they had to become stricter about rules. Which was almost hilarious because the chief is Snow himself and he held the biggest party to be had in town almost once a month.

She only stayed because she knew Serah would be upset if she wasn't there and she wanted to make sure Hope would be okay, though Snow did act like his overly protective big brother most of the time. Every time she came, she couldn't help but wonder what Vanille and Fang would be doing if they were here. Vanille would probably end up being Serah's little mini, following her everywhere and helping with everything possible. Fang, on the other hand might be causing most of ruckus by arm wrestling Gadot and teasing Hope about his promotion while Serah and Vanille attempt to defend him. She would try to draw Light into it to, in seconds she would have figured out that Hope's promotion meant Light had gotten one too and would have bothered her incessantly until Light admitted she had gotten a promotion and then promptly take a swing at Fang all while Fang would be doing that annoying grin that showed up because she loved being right. No, being right was just a bonus. Truly she would be even more pleased because she had irked Lightning.

Lightning wandered back towards her house, simply enjoying the walk and the coolness of the bright moonlit night. She had left after saying goodbye to Serah and even giving Snow a half hearted wave that she regretted as he bellowed a goodbye and an insistence she come for breakfast on Sunday. Hope showed up beside her two minutes later, a silent shadow.

They parted ways, Hope heading back to the barracks and Light continued on to her house wondering what she was going to do with herself for the next few days.

...

Out in the sky, Cocoon shimmered brightly. The pillar of crystal stood unwavering, a constant reminder of the sacrifice made. The pillar stretched up from the land, supporting the ball that was Cocoon. Right underneath that ball in chamber of spider web like crystals floated a statue or two women with hands intertwined with odd expressions of peace and relief on their faces. The chamber was eerily quiet, not as single sound as a blue light glowed and pieces of crystals floated around them.

One woman started to change as the crystal seem to change into a liquid and drop off into tiny pieces of crystal dust that flew everywhere.

"Ahhh!" Fang, the same as she had been the day she watched her friends float up found herself face to face with a frozen Vanille and was more than a little freaked out.

...

Thanks for any reviews, story favs, etc. I really appreciate them.


	3. Chapter 3

Fang had just finished yelling when she let go of Vanille's hands and felt herself drop down and was close to yelling again. She fell a few metres onto a base of crystal just below the blue glowing light and collapsed onto the ground.

"Oww, what did you go and do that for?' She questioned, still getting used to the idea of moving again. She stood herself up and looked up to Vanille.

"What do we have here, then? Vanille, wakey wakey!" Vanille continued to float on, oblivious. The back of Fang's mind started to worry. Why was she awake? Where was she? Why wasn't Vanille awake? She looked away from Vanille, hoping a distraction would help. The web like crystal threads supported the crystal base she was on and she supposed it would be possible to use these to find a way out. Not without Vanille of course.

Then she spotted something strange. A couple of thread lengths away, her lance and Vanille's rod were set in the jagged star of a crystal. She glanced up at Vanille and to the weapons again. Reluctant as she was to leave Vanille, fetching the weapons did give her something to do and a way to defend herself.

She decided for it, and began edging her way along the crystal towards them. She made it rather easily, with only a few slips that may have been fatal. As reached out for her lance she couldn't help but comment.

"Lady Luck must be on my side today!" Fang grabbed her lance, happy to see something familiar.

"Faaaaaannng!" Fang almost winced as she heard the tone of voice that Vanille only seemed to use when Fang was causing trouble. Fang spun around as she saw Vanille fall to the floor as crystal dust filled the air once more. She snapped up the rod and began making her way back using the two weapons for balance and support.

"Vanille!" She yelled happily. Vanille looked up and smiled as she saw Fang rushing over. Fang made the trip and dropped the weapons as Vanille ran up to hug her.

"Fang!" She hugged her and then let her go. "Where are we?" Fang laughed.

"I haven't a clue. Seems to be made of crystal. We could go along the threads and find a way out, I think." Vanille nodded. "Why did ya yell my name when you woke up?" Fang couldn't help but question. Vanille smile grew a bit bigger.

"Oh, I felt myself falling and it seemed like trouble so I assumed it had something to do with you." Fang huffed and picked up her lance and the rod, and tossed the latter to Vanille.

"Now why is it always my fault? You cause way more problems than I ever do." Fang looked around and decided that any direction was as good as the next one and headed to where the weapons had been laying.

"Because you just aren't as cute as I am." Vanilled bubbled in a sweet voice. Fang laughed.

"I guess not."

…

The threaded room seemed to go on forever. They had hit a wall of crystal, but it was so thick it only appeared a glassy white and seemed to have no openings. After an hour of balancing on threads and getting nowhere, Vanille had had enough and was surprised by Fang's reluctance as she made a suggestion.

"I want to go downwards. We don't know where we are, it can't hurt." Fang paused in her searching of the wall and turned to Vanille.

"Vanille, normally I would be all for it. But we don't know where we are or even.." Fang didn't want to say it. They didn't know what century it was. Vanille nodded.

"I know Fang but I'm tired and this.." She paused and lifted up Nirvana. "looks way more fun!" She swung the rod outwards, the long tendrils flipping out and latching onto a nearby thread and swung. "Coooo-eeeee!"

"Vanille!" Fang called out, even though her grin gave away the fact that she loved the idea. Vanille ignored her and managed to land on a lower thread, unhook the rod and begin the process again. As Nirvana latched on again, she called out.

"Come on Fang! I'm going to beat you to the bottom."

"You bloody well aren't!" Fang yelled as she took her own lance, found a downward sloping thread and placed the lance over it while holding on to it with a hand on either side. She pushed off and began to slide down, switching on to different tendrils as needed.

In no time at all, they reached the bottom with Fang beating Vanille by hitting the wall and using it to slide down to the floor. Unfortunately, stopping on crystal is a little difficult and she did manage to slide into a couple of threads that reached into the floor and earn a few bruises. Nonetheless, the goal had been obtained.

"Ha! That'll teach you to race your big sis!" Vanille rolled her eyes and dropped neatly to the floor, folding Nirvana up as she looked around.

"Yes, yes. That was the whole point. The race, right." Fang realized in that moment that she might have been played.

"Vanille, if we have to climb back up this again, you are so in for it." Vanille shrugged.

"Nirvana retracts. I could simply use it to get myself back up again. Can your lance do that, Fang?" Fang scowled, having been beaten twice in the span of a minute and resolved to get vengeance later.

The size of the floor they were standing on was about the size of a gymnasium and the walls of crystal all sloped down to meet it creating a round room. Along the floor the occasional tendril dropped down from bigger crystal webs and melted seamlessly into the floor.

"We might as well get at it." Fang commented as Vanille nodded in agreement. Fang motioned to the one side and Vanille skipped over to the wall and began inspecting. Fang took the opposite side and placed her hands on the wall feeling for any weakness or give.

Five minutes later, she called to Vanille. A part of the wall seemed different, she couldn't tell you why but something was off. Vanille skipped over and hmmed. Fang laughed and raised Kain's lance.

"Can your rod do this Vanille?" She brought the lance down, crashing the front end into the crystal that promptly collapsed a leaving a doorway. A doorway that only led to more crystal.

"Etro, you have got to be kidding me!"

…

Sazh was tired of this new city. Day in, day out he was flying carrying who knows what. Mostly supplies from Cocoon to new Cocoon, supplies from there to the smaller out reaching cities. Luckily, he did have seniority over many of the other pilots and usually managed to snag all of the Oerba runs. He was hoping over time, that he would eventually would be placed in Oerba full time and be able to move himself and Dajh there to be closer to their friends.

Though life in the new city was interesting. They had quickly managed to understand and adapt much of the technology the Fal'Cie had used to keep Cocoon running. Everyone seemed very determined to return to a lifestyle similar to their old one, even though they were on completely new territory with new flora and fauna. They had set up a council and were working on a proper government to be set it in place as soon as the city was deemed stable.

Sazh couldn't help but think to himself that they were panicked and trying desperately to appear calm and normal. Maybe he really just was becoming an old man, but something didn't feel right. He shook his head, trying to get back in the game of focusing on his flying. The sooner they got out of this city, the better.

...

Fang nearly smacked her head against the wall in frustration. Sure, they hadn't been in there for very long, but Fang never liked being trapped indoors and she wanted to know exactly where they were or at least if the sun still existed. Vanille however stepped into the doorway and grinned.

"Look Fang." Fang stuck her head into the doorway, looking to where Vanille was pointing. A small opening was there that seemed to be a tunnel running parallel to the wall. It was dark, but it wouldn't be the first time they had wandered into someplace unknown with no light source.

"Let's go."

Fang led the way through the wall, regretting it about fifteen minutes later because she often smacked her head on the ceiling. The tunnel seemed to go back and forth slowly progressing through the wall. Fang had one hand in front of her and the other on the wall beside her. Vanille was hanging onto her sari behind her, happily singing some song under her breath completely trusting in Fang's ability to lead and occasionally chuckling at Fang's cries of pain and annoyance. After a few more curves, Fang let out a whoop.

"Light, I can see light!"

"Why is Lightning here?" Vanille questioned and looked up. "Daylight!" She squirmed her away around Fang and ran towards it. Fang felt her heart go up in her throat and calmed as Vanille slowed as she reached the opening.

Vanille gasped in delight as she looked out over Gran Pulse. The cliffs, the plains, they were home. Then she looked down. Fang caught up to her and smiled at the familiar view.

"Uhh Fang?" Fang was caught up in the landscape she knew where they were. She looked up and noticed a crystallized Cocoon above them and her eyebrows came together in confusion.

"How are we going to get down?"

…

Lightning was sitting at her kitchen table staring at a cup of coffee. Saturday morning was already half over and she was just sitting here wasting it. Tired of waiting, she wandered upstairs to her falling apart bedrooms and sighed.

"Sis? Light? We're here!" She rolled her eyes and sipped at the cup she held in her hand. She came back downstairs as Snow barreled in, his eyes focused on the coffee cup in front of him.

"Hello Snow, where is…"

"Hey Light!" Hope appeared from behind Snow, still sporting his new jacket she noticed. Snow downed the cup of coffee and turned to Light.

"So sis." Lightning's eyes narrowed and she stiffened. "Uh, Light." She calmly sipped her coffee and looked at him, expressionless.

"Are you sure you don't want me to call some more people? I'm sure Gadot would help out. Yuj and Maqui too." Hope could see Lightning tense even more at the suggestion and cut in.

"Hey, hey. Don't do that! If you call more people Light will never let me on the roof and I'll be stuck serving ice tea or something." Hope looked to Snow, ignoring the strange look Light was giving him. Snow slapped Hope on the back.

"That's right, couldn't let you get away with doing nothing."

"Hehe, yeah." Hope mustered, unable to come up with a better response but pleased his intervention had worked.

"Well we've brought everything we need and it's all outside. Let's get to it!"

Hours later with the roof half finished, Light had gone inside to grab drinks, Snow dropped him hammer, rolled over on his back and looked over to Hope.

"I know you like to protect Lightning as much she does to you, but don't you think she's getting a little anti-social? I know the boys annoy her, but it would have been way faster and good for her." Hope paused from his work not wishing to have the discussion but he and Snow did have good conversations and Snow was usually keen on listening to other people's opinions. Well, most of the time any ways.

"I don't know Snow. She's hurting. She hasn't been the same since Vanille and Fang have been gone. I don't think she ever accepted it." Hope trailed off not sure what else to say.

Snow nodded. He missed Fang and Vanille too, but had to admit maybe not in the same way Light or Hope did. Fang was a good friend to him, she was always up for some sort of roughhousing game and he had been so excited to introduce her to football or maybe rugby because she would have loved it. And sweet little Vanille who always had a smile on her face and a cheery attitude that Snow could respect because he believed a positive attitude always helped. But Vanille had that soft spot for Hope and Fang, well he didn't know what Light would miss about Fang because Fang seemed to piss off Light even more than he did but they did spar often, do patrols together and argue incessantly on a variety of topics. He often thought Fang would defend something she didn't even remotely believe in just to get Light's goat and it always worked.

Then of course there was the whole sacrifice thing they all felt guilty for. There had been talk of going to find them but it had never panned out. Hope's eyes darted to Snow wondering whether he should divulge certain information and his mind debated remembering that time nine months ago.

...

"I'm going, I have had enough. No one is doing anything. I'll go by myself." Lightning confided to Hope as they sat out on a scouting training mission.

"Light, you can't do this." Light simply stared at Hope, her frosty expression would usually be enough to send anyone running. But Hope knew this behavior and refused to stand down.

"Do you think that I don't want to go! That I don't want to find them? I do Light, just as much as you do. But let's say we do find them and they are frozen crystal statues. Will it make you happier to see them like that? Serah didn't wake up for you or Snow. What makes you think they will wake up if we show?" Hope stood up in his exasperation and tried to stare Light down. She avoided eye contact.

"They will, they have to. I can't... she has… they have to. I miss her." She ended softly.

"Light, we don't even know if they're there and if we could get to them" He gestured to Cocoon. "Look, everyone is still getting settled. A year Light, wait a year and see what happens. Maybe someone will come across them and.." He paused, meeting the blue eyes.

"And?" She couldn't stop herself from questioning in a cold tone of voice.

"If not, then we throw everything away and we go find them. To hell with what everyone says." She nodded slowly, not really liking the solution but the point of telling Hope was to encourage him to come along which she thought he would have agreed to instantly. It wouldn't be fair to go without him, though her heart pained her as she thought it.

"A year Hope. That's it." Hope nodded and they both looked over to Cocoon, still as ever.

…

"I see break time has started without me." Light commented as she appeared on the ladder, bearing beers and a cider for Hope. Hope abruptly snapped back to reality and almost started to slide. He caught himself and gratefully took the cider from Light, glad that he didn't tell Snow about the conversation. Later on, he and Light had other discussions or arguments about a few more requirements and a promise that it would just be the two of them. Admitting this to Snow would mean admitting they were up and leaving in a few months. Snow would not hesitate to tell Serah and the gang, and it would soon be turned into a gong show.

Light gazed out over the roof.

"Good work guys, I think we can have this finished tomorrow."

"Sure Light." Snow responded, grinning slightly. Light frowned, waiting for the catch. "After breakfast at my place, you mean." He leaned forward to snag the beer from Light's hand.

"Cheers Hope!" Light sat down on the roof, now sulky and swigged at her own beer.

"Whatever."


	4. Chapter 4

Fang was sitting with her legs hanging down from the edge of the opening on the crystal pillar. Vanille was sitting beside her, eyes closed in concentration. Fang was pleased, because she could see signs of civilization and in the distance even Oerba. Home was close and she was getting antsy.

"Shame I can't just summon Bahamut." She mused to Vanille, who simply nodded while keeping her eyes closed. Her eye popped open.

"I don't think we have our summons anymore but maybe magic can help us!"

"Eh?" One of Fang's eyebrows disappeared into her messy yet sculpted hair.

"You know that spell I made as a kid, the one that let you float a couple of feet off the ground?" Fang nodded, also remembering all the times Vanille had cast it on her simply to be annoying. "There are sections of the pillar that are jagged, so if we drop down aiming for them, the spell should catch us and not let us smash into it." Fang's jaw dropped a little. Maybe she had let Vanille hang around her a little too much if she kept coming up with more reckless ideas than Fang.

"Beats sitting around here all day." Vanille nodded and began to cast. In seconds they were both floating a foot above the ground they had been standing on. Vanille turned to Fang and gave her an insecure smile. Fang gave he a big confident one back showing she believed in Vanille and her casting ability. She grabbed Vanille's arm and took the step that left them free falling.

Fang yelled in joy and excitement, adrenaline rushing through her body taking her over as they fell. Vanille had started out shrieking but had switched to joining in with Fang's yells. Fang swung her lance off her back with her free arm and used it as a guide to propel them towards the first jutted edge.

As they neared it, Fang felt her mind fill with panic yet forcing herself to trust in Vanille. As they almost hit it she felt the magic kick in and their feet brushed the ground and then they lifted back up to the normal foot of floating over the ground.

"Mercy Vanille." Was all Fang could muster, her face white yet her enjoyment showed through her broad grin. Vanille nodded, her face white and she was bit shaky.

"It did work didn't it?"

...

"Betrayer." Read the one word text message Lightning sent to Hope as she walked in to Snow and Serah's. He had taken a work shift this morning to take some new recruits out and scout with them. She could hardly tell you why she was so irked about attending breakfast. After all, Snow said it was only going to be the three of them though Lightning thought he acted suspiciously about how calm and easy it would be.

On the other hand she could make it go by very quickly by insisting that they go finish the roof since Hope had ditched them.

She walked in, heading straight for the kitchen.

"I don't know Serah, Hope said.." Serah cut him off.

"I know, but that isn't solving anything… Hey Light! I made waffles!" Serah ran over to give Light her perfunctory hug which Light accepted as Snow handed her a cup of coffee from behind Serah. She reluctantly sat at the high table, it was higher than the average table with taller chairs to match. Serah loved not having her feet on the ground she swung them constantly, and Snow's feet just almost touched the ground he was just way too big for a normal table. Light always felt silly and a bit out of place which made her more defensive.

Serah sat down a plate of waffles and bacon in front of her and swung up into her own seat. Light promptly picked up her fork and looked to Snow who seemed to be almost bouncing with excitement. She stared at him as Serah promptly snacked his arm.

"Eat your breakfast." Lightning watched Snow bolt down his food and she turned to her own and began to eat.

"So Light, we noticed Hope's new colours seem to match yours now." Serah commented while attempting to make eye contact. Light continued to eat. "I just can't see Amodar promoting Hope and not you. Weren't you in charge of that group?"

"Yes." Lightning almost grinned, realizing Serah was teasing her and decided to play this game. Snow had finished his food and cut in.

"I'm going outside now!" He left the kitchen hurriedly, Light raised an eyebrow and Serah completely ignored it all.

"So he'll be your equal now. Do the same work, patrols, he might even get promoted before you!"

"Perhaps. He is a good soldier."

"But getting promoted before you? Don't you have seniority?"

"Yes usually it goes by seniority. But there are often special cases when they promote someone who is good at the job to a higher status. It happened to me before Crystal Cocoon." Light put her fork down and picked up her coffee mug. "As you probably remember."

Serah glared at her in frustration and sighed.

"Light, just tell me you got promoted." Light grinned for a split second and then went back to her morose face.

"I got promoted. Anything else you would like to know Mother?" Serah smiled and went over to the window and called out.

"Snow, you can come in now!" Lightning felt confusion emerge but kept her face blank. Snow appeared in the doorway his arms cradling something. Two something's in fact.

"No, Serah, no.." Light trailed off as Snow put the puppies down and they began to roll around on the floor and explore. One was black and white with what seemed to be a boisterous outgoing personality while the other was all black and seemed to be a little calmer. As calm as puppies can be which is usually only when they're sleeping.

"Serah, I don't have time for this." Serah picked up the black one and carried it over to Light.

"Of course you do." She placed the pup in Light's arms. "You just told me you got a promotion. I know it came with a few days off." Light nearly gritted her teeth. Hope.

"That doesn't mean you go out and get me a puppy Serah. I don't want a dog."

"You liked Sleek." Serah retaliated. Light opened her mouth, closed it and shook her head slightly.

"Sleek was a cat and that was a very long time ago." Lightning was impressed Serah remembered Sleek, he had been their mother's cat. A very mellow silver tabby named for his smooth fur. Light had adored him and often picked him up trying to take him wherever she went. When they took Serah and Lightning away after their parents died, Light had struggled to find him. She thought now it was for the better that she hadn't been able to find Sleek, there was no way the agency would have let him come with them. She had always hoped he had found a new home.

She looked down at the puppy and noticed the startling blue eye and the wolf looking yellow eye. It didn't wriggle at all, it seemed content in her arms.

"He likes you!" Snow commented while playing with the other puppy.

"Regardless, I do not want this." Light held her ground. Serah's face fell.

"But Light, they don't have a home. Gadot found them last night and took one but said he couldn't take the other two."

"Why can't you take them both?" Serah nearly laughed and motioned to Snow who was exuberantly playing with the puppy.

"Do you think I need three puppies?" Snow looked up.

"Three?"

"Nothing, dear." She turned back towards Light. "Please Claire?" Using the forbidden name that only she was allowed.

"Fine."

...

They had reached the ground. Well almost. They were still floating.

"Vanille, as appreciated as the spell was, trying to maneuver with this is on isn't gonna work." Fang commented knowing that in the past Vanille had been unable to nullify the spell. Vanille smirked.

"Silly Fang. I always knew how to nullify it. I just didn't want to."

"You little minx! You left me floating for hours!" Vanille cast the spell and they both abruptly dropped to the ground.

"Be annoyed later, Fangy. What happened to Cocoon?"

"I don't remember. Sure looks a sight more gorgeous than it did before. Maybe we had something to do with it. We were in room of crystal, though it doesn't look like we have a Focus." Fang motioned to the tattoo on her arm, a silvery-white that was completely still. Vanille nodded, her tattoo was completely gone. Then she broke out into wide smile.

"Let's go find everybody!" Fang looked down to the ground, not sure how to say it. Vanille noticed Fang's expression and her voice grew calm. "I know Fang. It could be just like last time. But maybe it isn't. It can't hurt to look." Fang looked up, her face serious but her eyes twinkling.

"We could see Oerba from up there and it looks like Cocoon has nobody home. Let's go home, Vanille."

As they made their way away from the pillar and down the cliffs to Oerba, on the other side of the pillar unnoticed by Fang and Vanille, the new city thrummed with life.

…

Vanille was amused as she watched Fang try in vain to catch a chocobo. She had already caught one and was up and ready to go. Fang usually had a real talent with animals, but birds seemed to be a whole different story. Vanille took pity on her.

"Stop Fang." Vanille guided her bird towards another one and began to stroke its neck. After a few minutes she whispered to Fang. "Get on quick before it figures it out!"

Fang needed no encouragement. She jumped on, the chocobo squawked and then settled.

"Let's go Vanille."

They traveled for the rest of the day and had made decent progress when Fang decided it was time to set up camp. Vanille somehow had convinced the chocobos to hang around, though Fang doubted that they would be there in the morning.

Fang didn't feel like making a fire, so after gathering fruit and stuffing their faces with the familiar food they curled up underneath a tree.

"Fang?"

"Ya, Vanille?"

"Do you think that someone will be there?"

"I don't know. Guess we'll find out tomorrow."

…

Snow did keep his promise of fixing the roof. Light had made a makeshift collar out of rope and tied him to a nearby tree. She and Snow worked silently side by side until it was finished. As she climbed down, she headed into the kitchen and fetched the dog a bowl of water. She came back out and placed it in front of him, and watched as he made a giant mess of it, playing in the water and eventually spilling it all over.

"What are you going to name him?"

"Thank you for helping with the roof. You can leave now Snow." Snow nodded solemnly, picked up his tools and left.

"What am I going to do with you?" The puppy looked up at her, wagged his tail and barked.

…..

Hooray. Happy Monday.


	5. Chapter 5

Jihl Nabaat had seen better days. After finding out all she had done would lead to Cocoon's destruction and being left to die, trying to live again in this new world was more than a little difficult. She had managed to lie and say she was being controlled and luckily enough most believed her. The ones that didn't had enough power to keep her out of the spotlight and she was fine with that.

In reality she knew she hadn't been controlled but she had fervently believed in the government and thought she was doing what was right. Even if that was taking her job to the maniacal extremes and leave her with things she would regret for the rest of her life.

Jihl was in all respects a natural born leader. She had the talent, the ability to gain respect and keep it, and the confidence. She often wondered if that was why they hadn't left her to die.

She hated the fact that they kept mimicking Fal'cie technology to make their new home function. She honestly wanted little to nothing to do with anything remotely related. She hid it well though, knowing that an outcry would leave her out of a job.

They put her high up in the military, in tactics and defence and so far her job had been pretty similar. Being higher up meant she didn't have to set up schedules, find people. She chose where, said guard this or provide security and it was done. It probably helped that she took the occasional bodyguard job for the higher ups proving that everyone did their fair share. She always took rookies when doing that job, making sure they did everything properly. But she also had to be careful to not be identified when she did do those jobs, she had been seen following Dysley around for years.

Lately they had asked her to amp up security and she couldn't figure out why. There were monsters everywhere but she had proved again and again that the city was safe and the monsters were slowly figuring out that hanging around meant death. Something was happening she was sure of it and she almost wished she could be trusted just so she could be aware. The council seemed worried and really wanted to get the government in place ( which was mostly made up of them along with a few voted in members.)

Jihl did remember a transmission that the city had received that she had largely ignored because of the whole mess with the Fal'cie had happened. But she remembered parts, set up the city accordingly and waited to see if she was right.

...

Vanille had worked her charm because the chocobos were still there in the morning. They had been riding for most of the day and had reached Oerba. They had both noticed that it was occupied by a fair number of people and Fang had her guard up. As they dismounted and let the chocobos go free, they both hung back a little bit.

"I don't know if we should just walk right in there. Don't know if it's safe or not." Fang brought out her lance and checked the blades. Vanille shook her head and looked at Fang pleadingly.

"Fang, I just want to know. Skulking around won't do anything." Fang sighed, putting her forehead in her hand.

"Fine but we stay to the edge. If we head to the beach, we go right by the orphanage."

Vanille jumped up in excitement, and then paused. "Put your lance away."

Fang gave her a look, which Vanille countered and then she shrugged and slung it on to her back. She could have it out and ready in a split second if need be.

Together they walked into their old home, staying silent and cautious. People were out walking around, most of them gave the pair an odd look but continued on their way. Vanille was near bouncing with excitement, they could see buildings being redone and used; it was nice to see life in the old town. They walked by Snow and Serah's not knowing that they knew the owners of the residence.

Fang was scrutinizing the work being done while they walked. Seemed like they wanted to follow Cocoon style, she wondered if that would hold up when the winds came. Vanille's gasped.

"Fang!" She began to run. Fang who had been watching some people reside an old house, snapped her attention to Vanille who was long gone. Her face frowned in confusion and then she saw what Vanille was running to.

...

Lightning was still confused by this dog. She had made a slightly better collar out of an old strap but she still only had a makeshift piece of rope for a leash. The pup on the other hand seemed to do nothing more than play with anything in sight. She didn't really mind it chewing on the furniture most of it was ancient but she did like to keep the house on order and the dog wasn't helping. She pulled it away from chewing on the leg of an armchair.

"Would have been nice if they had given me something to feed you." Lightning mused aloud. She had planned on working on the house today, the roof being fixed was only one of many problems. She petted it absently, scratching behind the ears. The puppy instantly tried to turn it into a game, playfully biting at her hand. She withdrew it and sighed.

"I can't feed you tins of tuna forever. Might as well go and get you food."

She went and fetched the 'leash' and tied it on. They weren't as advanced at the new city, Oerba didn't have a supermarket or a pet store. Most animals here were brought in and apparently already abandoning them. There was a butcher shop in town, maybe they would have bones or scrap meat? She had no idea what Serah had gotten for their dog and didn't feel like calling her or admitting she might be failing with the dog.

"Come on." She paused. She had no idea what to name the dog. "Pup."

Walking down the street from the butcher's shop, Light felt a little odd. Carrying bones and meat in a one-shoulder backpack was more than a little strange. The dog however had been decently behaved and the butcher had fed him little pieces admiring the unmatched eyes. Lightening realized she might be getting a little attached, the man had hinted his kids would love a puppy and Lightning had ignored him. She could have been rid of the dog, but Serah would have been heartbroken and Lightning had to admit it was pretty loveable.

Lightning leaned down to get the leash out from under the dog. As she stood up, she debated taking a longer route even with the dog food weighing her down. She headed nearer to the outskirts of town meandering a bit. The puppy seemed to be a bit of a follower staying behind Lightning though often stopped to check something out. Lightning gave it a long lead so she didn't have to pull him along very often but the leash occasionally tripped her up.

She rounded a corner tightening the leash to keep the pup away from the street and headed for the orphanage. She felt her heart stop when she realized two people were standing in front of it. One had red hair and seemed very bouncy, and the other was taller more relaxed and calm, yet had an air of anticipation.

Lightning could hardly believe her eyes, it couldn't be. It had to be some trick. As she walked closer, her heart beat faster and faster, she could feel herself begin to get shaky.

…

"Doesn't look like anyone is here." Fang commented. "At least right now. Looks likes they're fixing it up." Vanille smiled and then frowned.

"Do you think our stuff is still there?" Worry permeated her voice.

Lightning came up behind them, overhearing the conversation.

"Hope has Bhakti, Vanille." Fang and Vanille spun around. There stood Lightning, same face as ever with a puppy at her heels.

"Sunshine!"

"Puppy!"

Light heard no more as she felt her world go black.

Fang sprung forward instantly and caught Lightning as she fell. Lightning slumped against her and Fang quickly took her underneath the arms.

"Vanille, get my lance would ya?" Vanille grabbed the lance and waited. Fang knelt down slightly and maneuvered Lightning so she was leaning over top of Fang's back. Vanile figured out what Fang was up to and handed the lance to Fang. In less than minute, Light was piggybacking on Fang, the lance underneath her rear as a support with Fang holding on to it from either side.

"Some greeting this is, eh Vanille? Tell you the truth I got almost as much as a shock as she did." Vanille picked up the puppy whose leash had fallen to the ground as Lightning got lifted up.

"I can't believe she has a puppy."

"Who knew Light had a soft side? Come on, let's see if we can find her home."

…

Lightning felt herself drift back to consciousness after voices had permeated her dreams. As she blinked and opened her eyes, she wondered why she fallen asleep on the couch. As she sat up slowly, she suddenly recognized the voices.

_Fang, Vanille, Hope?_ She got up and slowly walked to her kitchen. Vanille was sitting on the floor, playing with the pup while chattering at Hope whose face was the happiest Lightning had seen in a long time. Hope was seated at the table, facing Vanille while Fang was sitting in a chair backwards, leaning on the support as she commented from time to time on Vanille's story.

"Well look who's here." Fang drawled as she noticed Lightning. She stood up slowly almost uncurling like a cat. "That wasn't much of a hello Light." Lightning shrugged.

"Nice to see you too." She looked to Hope.

"Vanille called me on your phone. They didn't know where you lived." Lightning nodded. "Should we call everybody else? They'll be so excited." Fang's eyes widened.

"Wait up, Hope. I want to see everybody else but we're tired. Give us a day or two to recover, then bring on the whole happy reunion." Vanille nodded in agreement.

"That's alright. Sazh doesn't live here so giving him some notice would be good."

"In the mean time Vanille, start your story over so Light can hear it." Said Fang. "Come on Light, come sit." Lightning headed over to the table and Fang half-heartedly punched her in the arm and sat down. Lightning scowled and sat looking to Vanille.

"Well Fang woke up first.."

…

Later Lightning stepped outside through the sliding door with the puppy following her. She sighed as she stood on the dilapidated deck, another thing to fix. She swigged at her beer wondering if Snow had left a case at her house. Hope had been the one to find it.

She leaned on the railing, careful to not put too much weight on it so it wouldn't break and gazed out.

Fang had noticed Lightning leave and decided to follow her. Hope and Vanille were sitting together on the couch and it was getting a little too cozy for Fang. She picked her beer and headed out.

Light didn't move as she heard the door slide open and Fang step out.

"Hey."

"Hey." Fang stepped over and leaned her back against the railing that creaked against her weight but held.

"We might have to get a bucket or something Light. Those two, I dunno." Light chuckled. Fang took a drink from the bottle and Light watched a drop of beer slide from the corner of her mouth and down her neck. Fang crouched down, placing her bottle on the ground and called for the dog that came willingly.

"Surprised you have a mutt Light." She commented as she rolled the pup over for belly rubs. Light turned and leaned herself against the railing as Fang had been.

"Serah."

"Little more than that Light."

"You'll meet her and understand. She lives with Snow not far from here."

"Hope mentioned it." Fang stood up and stretched. "Look Light, I know we sorta crash landed at your place."

"You can stay here as long as you need Fang." Fang's face went from surprise to gratitude.

'Thanks Light." They stood around for a couple of seconds, awkward tension between them. Then Fang held out her arms and enveloped Lightning into a hug.

"I missed you Light." Light could hardly believe that it was Fang here and hugging here. She embraced the warmth and spicy smell of Fang, nearly stunned. Fang on the other hand, was impressed Lightning was accepting a hug.

"I missed you too Fang." She almost whispered. Fang let go first, slightly confused by Light's clinginess.

"What are you going to name the dog?" Light's face went blank.

"I don't know." Fang's face turned thoughtful.

"Iskote." Fang grinned. "What do you think?"

"What does it mean?"

"That's for you to find out."

…

Thanks for all who have stuck with me so far.

I tend to compare my writing to a slow moving train; eventually the story will begin to pick up speed as more things come into place.

Iskote is a real word and for interests sake is pronounced iss-coat-eh.


	6. Chapter 6

Vanille was outside in the sad attempt of a front yard. Lightning's phone was in her hand and up to her ear; she had not bothered to return it yet.

"We'll be right there. See you soon."

"But Fang." The line had gone dead. Vanille was fighting between leaping around in excitement and being paralyzed in fear. Lightning and Fang were going to kill her. She sat down on the cracked steps leading up to the house. Oh well. It was worth it.

Fang woke up with the feeling of someone watching her. That may have attributed to the fact that Snow's smiling face was right in front of hers.

"Ahhh!" Fang let out an involuntary yell as she realized who it was.

"Fang!" Snow's face was exuberant.

"Hey big guy. Mind moving?" Snow back off a tiny bit and Fang swung her legs off the couch and down to the floor. Her sari was currently non-existent; she was clothed in only her black shorts and sports bra top. As she dragged herself up from the couch her attire did not deter Snow one bit. He swept her her into a hug using most of his might and Fang could feel her ribs threatening to crack and felt her feet dangle, toes barely scraping the floor.

"Missed you too, buddy."

Lightning's wake up was not so happy. Fang had kept her up most of the night asking questions about the developments of Oerba and all about the Erewhon, the new city.

Her mind began to stir to consciousness as she heard quick footsteps on the stairs that didn't sound like Iskote. As she flicked her eyes open, she could see Serah's attempt at an angry face.

"Why didn't you call us?"

"Good morning to you too, Serah." Serah's hands went to her hips and Lightning almost laughed with how she almost looked like a scolding mother.

"Vanille phoned me. I had to find out from a phone call from Vanille that they were back. I almost went into shock." Lightning got up, dressed in a tank top and shorts and walked past Serah to the door. "Don't walk away from me."

"Coffee." Lightning muttered and headed down the stairs. She turned right, into the oversized kitchen where Vanille was apparently making a mess.

"Morning Lightning." Chirped Vanille and Lightning did a halfhearted wave in response. Deciding that it wasn't worth the effort to make a comment on the mess, she turned on the kettle and began to prep for coffee. Coffee was still a bit of a luxury; it had to be imported from the new city. Amodar had noticed that at work she made a pot every morning and one day ground coffee appeared on her desk. It still showed up every week or so, she suspected Amodar was knicking it from the Corps' supply but it meant fresh coffee everyday so she didn't care.

Iskote skittered into the room, his sibling right behind him. Light rolled her eyes at the idea of two pups running around and knelt down and made a tsking noise. She held a hand out and Iskote almost skipped over in delight. He nosed her empty hand, looked up at her and whined.

"What are you doing, teasing the poor thing? He thinks you're gonna feed him." Fang stepped into the room with Snow right behind her, who knelt down and started wrestling his own puppy with his hand. Lightning frowned and stroked the dog's head. Fang turned to Vanille who was pouring what seemed to be like batter into a frying pan.

"Vanille, what happened to a couple days yeah?" She looked around the kitchen. "And what did you do to Light's kitchen?" Vanille put down the bowl and walked over to Fang.

"I just wanted to talk to Serah." Vanille put on a puppy dogface.

"Don't do the face." Fang warned. Vanille pouted even more. "Not the face."

"I'm making breakfast." Vanille said softly in a five year old's voice. Lightning got up at the sound of the kettle boiling and poured the water into a glass carafe with the coffee grounds in it.

"Don't be like that. Come on, Vanille. Oh, fine then. It's okay."

"Yay!" Vanille jumped in delight, hugged Fang and turned back to the now sizzling pan.

"You better clean this kitchen up though." Fang added, knowing it would fall on deaf ears. She looked down to Snow. "So why aren't you enthusiastically greeting Vanille?"

"She was waiting outside when we got here. She didn't want to wake anybody up." Serah walked into the kitchen. Fang suddenly felt a little more self conscious as to what she was wearing since she really hadn't been properly introduced to Serah. She decided to roll with it, making things awkward wouldn't help anything. She held out a hand to Serah.

"Seems like we never have been properly introduced though we've both heard about each other. Fang, pleased to meet ya." Serah tentatively took the hand but managed to shake it firmly. Vanille turned from the stove and cocked her head at Fang.

"Oerba Yun Fang. Don't be rude, Fang." Vanille scolded. Fang sighed while Serah looked confused.

"In Gran Pulse, we tend not to use our full names because if we give it to strangers, they can use it to track us down and attack our clans. We hardly ever use them." Fang explained.

"Fang doesn't use hers because she always got into so much trouble and assumes everyone would come find her. I have no problem with mine." Vanille added in a matter of fact tone. Serah's face went smoothly went into a friendly face.

"Serah Farron-Villiers." Fang grinned; it was stunning at how alike these two sisters were.

"My wife!" Snow piped in.

"Tied the knot already, did ya? Good on ya, Snow." Fang felt herself being nudged in the arm with something warm. Lightning was holding two mugs of coffee in her hand and was nudging her arm with one. She took it, her face holding a tiny bit of surprise and sipped.

"This is good."

"I know you have a version of coffee but we can't seem do duplicate that so this is brought in from the city."

"This is just as good. What's in it?"

"Sugar and cream." Fang stared at the drink. They had coffee occasionally on the journey but most of the time she had ignored it. There was plenty of time now to make up for it.

"Only making coffee for Fang?" Serah piped in. Lightning motioned to the carafe and empty mugs beside it.

"Can I have coffee?" Vanille asked.

"One cup, Vanille. The last time they made this you and Hope dumped a bunch of sugar in it and were giddy all afternoon. Completely useless." Fang sighed, remembering how irritating it was to have their best healers being absolutely crazy. Lightning ended up having to heal and was not so pleased about it.

Vanille's face fell a little bit.

"Serah's only allowed to have one cup." Snow added in a bit of an attempt at a wise tone while trying to make Vanille feel better.

"Serah is allowed to make her own decisions about what she can and can not have thank you very much, and so can Vanille."

"One." Said both Lightning and Snow at the same time, Lightning quiet and commanding, Snow unsure and loud. Fang was snickering. Serah threw up her hands and went to pour coffee. Lightning walked out of the kitchen and into her living room and settled down into the couch. Fang followed and sat in the armchair, legs draping over one side.

"So what are today's plans?" Lightning glanced up from her cup.

"I don't know. I have some time off from work. I only have one spare bed, so we need to get another one." Fang nodded. "I was planning on working around the house." Snow walked in.

"We've got to have a party!" He collapsed on the couch beside Lightning, who moved slightly to be closer to the armrest. "Celebrate your return." He lifted his cup to Fang, who grinned.

"Since the cat's out of the bag, might as well make the most of it."

"Awesome." Snow smile got even wider and he gulped at his coffee. Serah walked into the room, the dogs skittering along behind her. Fang held out a hand and whistled for Iskote softly while the other jumped onto Snow's lap.

"So what's his name?" Fang gestured, indicating the pup.

"Kisari." Serah shot out instantly, while Snow shrugged. Fang nodded while Lightning raised an eyebrow at Serah. Snow laughed.

"I wanted to call her Blue because of her eyes. Serah wasn't up for that."

"Kisari means blue, Snow I told you that." Serah glared at Snow. Fang and Lightning avoided looking at Snow or Serah and awkwardly gazed around the room.

"So, uh, what about the party?" Fang tried a distraction tactic. Serah released her gaze on Snow and smiled.

"It'll be at our place, tomorrow night. Snow already called Sazh and he has a run that brings him here tomorrow morning." Serah had turned into sensibility to mode and there was no stopping her. "We need to go shopping. Vanille said you have no other clothes. It would be better to go to Erewhon, they haven't opened the mall here yet."

Fang struggled to remember what a mall was. They had dashed through one and it had been full of stores or something.

"There is a place on the other side of town. Take them there." Lightning cut in. Serah nodded.

"That's best for now. We'll go after breakfast." Lightning was watching Fang, her face had turned into a grimace.

"I need to finish the floor upstairs." Lightning stated. "I could use Fang and Snow. Take Vanille with you." Fang broke out into a smile.

"Vanille would be better than me going anyways, Serah. She'll make me get what she likes any ways, so no point in going if I'm more useful around here." Serah's lips pursed.

"Fine then." She turned to Lightning.

"I need Snow though. And he really should go to work."

"Had to See Fang and Vanille!" Snow called out while Kisari barked.

"Breakfast!" called Vanille from the kitchen. Snow and Serah got up and headed into the kitchen. Fang slowly swung her legs down to the ground and glanced to Lightning noticing that Lightning was watching her. Lightning quickly looked away and stood up abruptly and walked away.

"Okay then." Fang commented as she followed.

…

After a breakfast that turned out to be decent even if Lightning thought her kitchen looked destroyed, the three left leaving Fang and Lightning to do the dishes.

They did them silently with Lightning making quick, anxious glances at Fang who didn't noticed until she was drying the last dish.

"What are you looking at me for?"  
"I wasn't looking at you." Lightning quickly defended as she let the water out of the sink.

"What's up Light?" Fang placed the plate down on the stack and clasped her hands together. "Did you miss me that much?" Lightning's face began to flush and she felt cornered.

"No." Her voice was icy cold and Fang almost flinched. Almost. Lightning walked out before Fang could answer leaving her holding the dishtowel and feeling very confused. That wasn't a typical Lightning response. She finished drying the dishes and stacked them on the counter.

She had no idea where to put the dishes and leaned against the counter, wondering if she should apologize even if that had been a weak taunt.

Lightning reappeared, fully dressed and threw Fang's lance at her. She caught it easily and grinned.

"What's with this now?" Fang swung the lance around narrowly missing the table. Lightning shouldered her gun blade.

"I thought you might want to scout around, check out the area." Lightning also wanted to show Fang the military areas so she stayed away from them. New recruits were often very trigger-happy and Fang would find it very amusing to spook them.

"Get dressed. I'll see you outside in five." Lightning walked out and Fang swung her lance around while walking to the stairs. It was just gonna be like old times.

…

Fang loved scouting with Lightning. It was when the two of them just… clicked. On their journey they had both argued over who should scout ahead and finally Vanille just yelled at them to both go. Crossed arms and sulky remarks had lasted for a while but eventually both came to realize how well they worked together. Lightning's alertness and Fang's knowledge of Gran Pulse made them close to unstoppable. Fang relied on the plants to tell her what kinds of animals were hanging about and Lightning was quick to notice the slightest movement.

On the outskirts of town, Lightning paused to show Fang the military base.

"So this is where you work? Where does Hope live?" Fang seemed slightly angry using questions to distract from it. Lightning wanted to comment on it, but decided to see if talking about the base annoyed Fang further.

"Hope is in the barracks over there." She used her gunblade to point. "The land use extends for about twenty miles that way. I work mainly out in the field, though my office exists in the tin shack." The tin shack was the shoddy building built by GC when they first came. They had a slightly newer office next to it though everyone knew the best officers existed in the tin shack. Fang had only nodded, her lips in a thin line. Lightning decided to save the lecture about hanging around here for later and headed away from the base.

After hiking a fair ways, Fang was back to her usual face and enjoying being back in her home place. She also liked the Lightning was loosening up a bit. When they went out scouting after the initial hiccups Lightning had become a whole different person. Fang had pointed out different trees and plants and Lightning had responded with interest. When they were in the group though, Lightning had ignored her and cut her down with cold remarks anytime Fang tried to tease her. But here, Fang smirked evilly, thinking to herself. This was different.

Lightning was leading and heading nowhere in particular. Then she felt something bump her left hip. She ignored it and kept walking.

Fang knew there was a high probable chance of having her ass beat.

But Lightning got riled up by Fang's antics and that made her annoyed and clumsy, not thinking about when to strike and where, only about hitting. And hey, while it wasn't the most professional thing to do, it worked and Fang liked tactics that worked.

She could feel a sharp prodding on her right shoulder; she curled her body inward to avoid it. The poking continued though, and she could practically feel Fang's grin. Her gunblade was still out and therein that lay Fang's mistake.

Lightning spun suddenly not even bother to knock the lance aside and smoothly switched the blade into gun mode and mimed shooting. She did it so fast that Fang reacted instantly.

Fang jumped slightly and cursed inwardly. Lightning's face stayed the same, but the corner of her lip twitched.

"At one point in time, you would have fired the fancy gunblade of yours." Fang could not even remotely keep the smile off her face.

"What a waste of a bullet. You look just as scared as if I had fired."

"You wish, Sunshine. I was just making you feel better." Fang shifted into a fighting stance, though she left the lance out, making it seem like it was a simple walking stick. Lightning noted the shift and drew back slightly, grounding herself. It was down to a staring match, one that usually set off Fang's impatience.

"Come on, Lightning. Scared of me?" Fang taunted.

"Who would be scared of you?" Lightning posed it as a rhetorical question, a smile sliding on to her face

"Plenty of people." Fang practically purred back, starting to pace a bit back and forth. Lightning remained absolutely still. Fang knew Lightning was waiting for an opening but would wait for the best possible one before striking. Fang was hoping to goad her into attacking.

"Aw Sunshine, don't make me wait all day." Lightning stayed unmoving holding her gunblade in her right hand letting it just graze the ground, simply waiting. Fang was getting bored of this fast. Fang had the ability to annoy Lightning by existing; it usually would take less than this to get her going. Fang stopped pacing and stared at her, arms out, lance hanging limply at her side. "Lightning?"

Then she struck with the speed that earned that name. She had both hands on the handle and as she ran she slowly brought it up as if to cut Fang from legs to shoulder.

Fang just managed to swing her lance and grab it with both hands forcing it down onto Lightning's blade to defend herself. As soon as Lightning felt the pressure from Fang's defence she stepped back, leaving Fang to balance herself and charge in again. Fang let go of one side, letting the lace swing up to block the blade, and grabbed it with both hands again to push against the blade while trying to angle the end of the lance so that it headed directly to Lightning's leg. Lightning spun away, her face back to blank, but Fang could see the glimmer in her eyes. Fang was grinning like a feral cat.

"You've learned some new tricks." Fang commented, while trying to catch her breath.

"You've gotten slow." Came Lightning's snap back response and Fang swung her lance around and jumped at her.

...

Serah realized her mistake of leaving Vanille in the kitchen. She had failed to notice the empty coffee carafe when they had left. After an enthusiastic goodbye to Snow at the temporary town hall, Vanille was practically shaking when she attempted to stand still and otherwise was bouncing and skipping around. Despite that, she was being quite interesting pointing out old buildings and what they were for.

As they'd reached the orphanage, Vanille became somber or at least as somber as she could be in her happy state.

"What's wrong?" Serah asked as Vanille slowed around the building.

"Nothing." Vanille responded brightly. "Hope told me they are going to use the space for a hospital. I think it's nice." Serah glanced up at the building.

"They said they got things out of there for you. Most of it's at my house and the rest at Light's. Do you think maybe they missed something?" Vanille shook her head.

"No, there wasn't much here. Fang and I had a house. Hope promised to take me later. He says Lightning owns it." Serah tried to mask her shock, though Vanille noticed and tipped her head a bit.

"Didn't you know? We didn't live here forever, I think Fang would have gone mad." Vanille paused and pretended to think. "Well, crazier than she already is. Lightning says she bought it so no one else would touch it." Vanille used the term bought because thats the way Hope had explained it to her. Lightning had been one of the first to show up in Oerba and while she didn't want to live in the city, she made sure that people knew that the house was not up for grab's and her property so to speak. She hadn't dropped a dime on her own house either. Paying for old, abandoned houses? Who could you even pay?

Serah was aware of that and decided to explain later. Right now she wondered if Snow had known about this and 'forgotten' to mention it to her. She shook her head. Lightning, it had to be Lightning who made him keep it a secret. But that could be dealt with later. Right now she had an old friend to catch up with. Vanille was back to skipping about and Serah reached for an arm, and started walking leading Vanille.

"Come on, let's go find you some new clothes." Serah paused, and Vanille could see the sparkle in her eye that reminded her of Lightning. "And you can tell me all about you and Hope."

She led a slightly stunned Vanille along to the shop, who recovered quickly and instantly began to talk.

...

Back in the house they were doing dishes again after eating a lazy lunch of leftovers. They were both silent again, thinking about what it meant that Vanille hadn't returned yet.

"This is going to be some party, isn't it?" Fang asked while leaning against the counter.

"Serah is always determined to throw the best one even if they are one of the only places in town that holds parties." Lightning was getting out food for Iskote, placing a bowl on the counter and rummaging through the fridge to find the meat she left out to thaw.

"So what does Snow do exactly?" Lightning raised herself up from the fridge and shut it smartly with a light kick.

"The police of the town." Fang's eyebrow rose.

"So what does your fancy military get up do then?"

"Whatever headquarters tells us to do. Training new recruits is one of the main tasks. They send most of their new ones here now so they get a feel for the landscape. Often we help in defending the town from monsters when Snow is running short on hands." Lightning saw Fang twitch slightly at the word landscape. She could feel worry bubble up in her, wondering if she normally would have asked Fang about that. She knew there was a good chance she wouldn't have.

"Fang, is there something wrong with where the base is?" Fang was a little taken aback by Lightning. Sure, they were friends but Lightning being that observant about someone else's feelings with the exception of Hope was a bit surprising. Even so, Fang appreciated the concern.

"Yeah, a bit. Just on old stomping ground of mine." Fang hoped that would be enough to sate Lightning, who watched Fang's face as she said it. Lightning didn't believe her. What she said might be related to it but it wasn't it. Fang was gazing around as if interested in everything in the kitchen all of a sudden. Then her head tipped to the side a little bit.

"We shouldn't have left Vanille alone." Lightning followed Fang's gaze to the lack of coffee and her lips came up into a small smile. "Serah will have her hands full."

"Serah already has Snow and the dog to deal with. She can handle herself."

"Oh I'm sure she can, Sunshine, but she should have let him name the dog. He'll want to name the children now." Fang scoffed, while Lightning blanched slightly. She whistled for Iskote who came barreling in as she placed the bowl on the ground.

"I'm going to go look at the deck." Lightning began to walk out of the kitchen. "I think I might take it apart today." Fang shrugged.

"I got nothing better do." She followed Lightning out.

After a couple of hours the deck was completely demolished. They had piled all the woods into separate piles, of rotting, half decent and decent. To Fang it was all just straight to the burn pile, but she went along with Lightning's ideas for now. Lightning had gone inside and Fang had been resting under a tree for the better part of an hour.

She was half asleep, not noticing when Lightning came to find her, Iskote on a leash.

"I thought I'd take Iskote for a walk." Fang thought this a bit odd because they had let Iskote be off leash while they worked on the deck and he'd been a nuisance until they figured out that teaching him a couple of commands might help. Fang didn't really think he understood heel, he just liked following Light.

"Okay." Fang closed her eyes again. Lightning began to feel nervous.

"I need you to... to help me walk the dog." Lightning finished lamely. Fang's eyebrow lifted.

"Help you, Sunshine?" Light felt her face begin to heat up but stood her ground.

"Yes." Fang stretched and rose herself up from the ground. She looked down into Lightning's eyes, remaining calm and casual.

"Sure, I guess. If you want to hang out Light, all you have to do is ask." Fang stated wondering if she had hit the nail on the head.

"Just come walk the stupid dog with me." Light countered instantly, letting her annoyance take over.

Yep, Fang was right and she decided to give in. Light on the other hand felt her anxiety building. She couldn't just ask Fang to hang out that would be weird. Fang didn't have the same feelings as she did but it was okay as long as they just did normal things that normal best friends did right? Well as normal as a best friend Fang could be which really wasn't normal at all.

They decided to walk along the lakeside. Fang had taken the leash off Iskote, who had instantly ran down to the water to bark at it occasionally. They were walking side by side on the beach. Lightning racked her brain for a conversation starter.

"Where does the lake go?" They really hadn't done any far patrols yet. They barely even had skimmers, which were basically overpowered boats that the military used. They had a grand total of two; Erewhon was ignoring their requests for more.

"All flows into a river which goes a far ways before flowing into the sea. Lake is fed by a few rivers upstream that meld together." Fang indicated by pointing. "I've been to that river, I don't recall the name. Vanille might know." Fang stopped and whistled for Iskote, who came running. She attached the leash again, handing it to Lightning as a family appeared on the beach.

"Suppose we should check it out one of these days. Would be nice to know the terrain before we go." Fang grinned.

"There should be maps in the library."

"Library?" Lightning was generally surprised. She had explored the town a little but not much further than securing her own house and Fang's.

"We had books Light, not many but we had them. Most of 'em will be in the traditional Gran Pulse script but maps are pretty universal."

"Where is it?"

"A couple of blocks down from me and Vanille's." Lightning nodded. She wondered what other information could be in that library.

"Let's head back." Lightning cut in suddenly. When Fang looked slightly surprised, Lightning motioned with her head to the setting sun.

"They'll be back soon and may we have Etro's mercy if we are not there to see what they bought." Lightning looked very grim and though Fang knew she was right, all she could do was laugh.

"Ain't that the truth."

…

Yay, chapter.

Sorry about the lateness, I only like posting chapters when I have at least half of the next one finished.

As always, thanks for reviews and follows.


	7. Chapter 7

Sazh was having a good day. He was set to take off in a half hour, his plane was packed and ready to go. He had pulled Dajh from school, snuck in the chocobo chick, and both were already in the cock pit. Snow's phone call had completely overjoyed him and he was ecstatic to go see Vanille and Fang again. Along with that, Snow had checked out some houses for him and was going to take him and Dajh to see them while they were there. He had just checked in with the tower and was heading back.

As he passed a small scouting plane, he noticed a couple of pilots hanging about drinking coffee.

"So what about that run to Oerba?" Sazh paused and wandered over.

"Oh hey Sazh, you all set to go?" The male pilot asked.

"Suited up and ready for the ball." Sazh replied smoothly. The other pilot, a woman grinned.

"Nice one." Sazh smiled and paused. "So did you hear about my run to Oerba? I was surprised, usually you take those runs. It's a weird one, they want me to take up some photographers." The man beside her scoffed into his coffee. "Well at least in the direction of Oerba."

"Are you landing at all? Sometimes when the wind is up it can be tricky." There was no current runway in Oerba, just old highway that they had makeshifted into a runway. The military had one on their base but it was only allowed for military options even though there was only one plane on the base.

"Not landing. That's why Jules thinks the government is up to something. Why aren't they having the military doing this?" Jules nodded. Sazh faked a laugh.

"Conspiracy theories again, Jules." While his voice sounded light and teasing, his face was serious. "When do you take off?"

"Next week or so. How long are you in Oerba?"

"For the week."

"I'll miss you!" She leaned in to hug him and whispered in his ear. "Keep your radio on, call me when you see me." She let go of him and smiled.

"Have fun!"

"Thanks Riv. See you later." Sazh walked away and headed back to his plane. He wondered if Snow and Lightning knew about this.

Fifteen minutes later, he was directing his plane onto the runway. He knew that River would keep eagle eyes on those photographers, she was often underestimated because of her friendliness and easy going nature. They would have done better by picking Jules. Other than Sazh, they were the only other two pilots decent enough at flying smaller crafts.

"Ready to go, copilot Dajh?" He looked over to his son who clapped his hands in excitement.

"Take 'er away, captain Daddy!"

"You got it." Replied Sazh as the plane began to taxi down the runway.

...

Having managed to keep Vanille at bay by feigning tiredness last night, Vanille wasn't taking any excuses this morning.

"Come on Vanille, why do I have to show Light?"

"Downstairs, now."

"But Vanille." Fang whined to no avail.

"Now."

Lightning could hear the sulky stomps of Fang on the stairs and smirked. She was sitting in one of the armchairs, drinking coffee. She and Fang had been discussing what type of deck would be the best until Vanille grabbed Fang by the ear and hauled her upstairs. Fang's abandoned mug of coffee sat on a beaten side table, slowly cooling.

Fang appeared in the doorway and Lightning nearly dropped her mug, cursing as she splashed coffee on herself. Fang was in a long, black skirt and a sleeveless dark green v-neck top. Her wild hair had been swept back in a high messy bun. It wasn't an amazing outfit but after seeing Fang in that blue sari for so long, she managed to startle Lightning.

"Tada." Fang announced sarcastically. She swept across the room, rescuing her mug. Lightning was still staring at her. Fang managed to resume her usual position on the chair almost losing all of her coffee while swinging her legs across the arm rest.

"Eh Light, what you looking at?"

"Hair." Was all Lightning replied with. She looked similar to a deer caught in the headlights. Fang grinned.

"Suppose I never bothered putting it like this before. No time when you're on the run." Lightning regained her senses and hurriedly turned her attention to her coffee. Fang quickly returned to the task at hand. "See having two levels on the deck..."

"Fang!" Vanille strode in, sporting a glittery pink cocktail dress. "What are you doing?" Fang shrugged and gestured to the coffee.

"I'm not going spill any coffee on it, don't worry." Vanille seethed.

"You think I only got you one outfit?"

"I'm done trying on outfits Vanille. I'm wearing my sari tonight and that's that." Vanille threw her hands up in the air.

"You only tried on one!" Fang nodded.

"I know, but look at poor Lightning. She almost went into shock. Her heart can't take it." Vanille glanced to Lightning, who was turning redder by the second and seemed to be completely immersed in the contents of her coffee cup.

"You can't wear that forever!" She walked out of the room again. Fang just laughed. Lightning looked up from her coffee.

"Serah does that to me too." She commented softly.

"No kidding eh? No wonder those two get along so well."

...

Sazh had just landed his plane on Oerba's runway, which was just an old highway that had been modified. He couldn't complain too much about it, it was one of the reasons he always got to do this run was because he knew where to land and most importantly where not to. As he stepped out of the plane, he watched the people come running up and begin to unload.

"Hey man, how are you doing?" Snow walked up, offering his hand. Sazh shook it warmly.

"Not too shabby. I honestly expected a little more of a greeting party."

"Don't worry, you'll see them soon enough. Serah and Vanille went shopping and apparently there's new outfits for everybody."

"This old man doesn't need new clothes. I already have style." Snow laughed as Sazh put on a bit a pose. Dajh appeared behind him, holding the chocobo chick that was roughly the size of a teddy bear.

"Snow!" He put down the chick and ran to him. Snow picked him up and lifted him into the air.

"Hey Dajh! How's the big city? You keeping everyone in line for me?" Dajh was very much in love with the idea of Snow being the head of the police in Oerba and had been made an official police officer by Snow the last time they had visited. He had ended up arresting Lightning for scowling too much at Snow's not so subtle prompting. Lightning took it well at the time of the arrest even while being handcuffed, simply commenting on Snow's obnoxiously loud parties and how he disturbed the peace. Dajh had also arrested him. Later on though after the party, Serah had noticed that Snow had some new bruises, was cuffed, and the keys were nowhere to be found.

"Yes chief!" Dajh replied.

Snow swung Dajh back down and looked to Sazh.

"Come on man. It's time to party."

"I'm getting too old for this."

...

After a loud reunion full of hugs and near tears, the party was going well. A little too well. It was loud and full of many people Lightning did not know and that she never really had wanted to meet. Vanille was extremely pleased that so many people came out to see them and Fang took it all in stride though she did like the comments about them being the Heroines of Cocoon. Lightning had managed to snag herself a glass of wine from Serah's stock, though Lebreau had brought enough booze to fill a swimming pool. Fang and her were engrossed in some conversation that involved shooting whiskey every so often.

"Hey soldier girl. Where's soldier boy?" Lightning turned to see Sazh, grinning at her.

"Entertaining Vanille. He brought Bhakti." Sazh looked over Lightning's shoulder to see Vanille clapping her hands excitedly while Hope pointed out some upgrades he had done on Bhakti.

"I see. I'll have to go check that robot out later." Lightning noticed that Sazh seemed preoccupied. Not one to mince words, Lightning sprang.

"What's wrong?" Sazh sighed and gave her a wistful look.

"I'm here for the week but before I left..." Sazh and Lightning began to discuss what Sazh had found out.

Across the room, Snow noticed that people were in deep conversations. He had already been into a couple too many beers and couldn't stand to see seriousness.

"Sis, hey Sis!" He barrelled across the room, almost knocking people over as he past. "Oops, sorry. Watch out!" Lightning looked up from her conversation, a death stare on her face. Snow stopped dead not a foot from her.

"Go away Snow." Snow looked to Sazh, who shrugged. "No work tonight, Light!" Lightning winced at the shortened name. "You're supposed to be off duty." Serah appeared behind Snow, careful not to comment but waiting for a moment to intervene if necessary. Lightning looked like she would pay someone five gil for the ability to hurt Snow right now. Snow swigged at his beer.

"I know what'll cheer you up!" Lightning's eyebrow raised slowly.

"And that would be?" Snow broke into a big grin.

"Fang, come here!" Fang who had noticed the interactions but had chosen to ignore them, looked up. She sauntered over, she and Lebreau had polished off a good half of a bottle. Lebreau followed behind her, holding said bottle.

"What's up big guy?" She punched him on the shoulder in greeting. Lightning rolled her eyes.

"Sentinel spar?" Fang paused, even in her hazy mind she knew that being inside for this was a bad idea. She glanced to Lightning

"Alright, you're on! Everybody outside!" Lightning looked less than impressed and Fang honestly couldn't blame her. The last time they had done this, she and Snow had ruined two tents and most of their makeshift camp and they hadn't been able to resupply for a couple days. They had still sparred of course, they just made sure Lightning wasn't around. Fang threw an arm around Lightning and pulled her along with the crowd.

They all marched outside to the back lawn. Sazh and Hope instantly began encouraging people not to make a circle around them and to simply stay at the back of the house leaving three side of the yard completely open. Bhakti, having been carefully placed down by Vanille was underneath a lawn chair. Vanille jumped in between them, being the referee she always was. Serah had found Dajh and was holding on to him ready to lead him away at a moment's notice.

Snow was ready to go, already waiting. He punched his fist enthusiastically while the crowd cheered. Fang laughed and slipped her necklaces off, placing them around Lightning's neck.

"Hold on to these will yeah?" Lightning nodded, though her arms were crossed and she remained defensive. Fang simply smiled, snagged the whiskey from Lebreau and knocked some back. "This will probably be a little less intense then when we were l'cie." Fang ran off to stand a coupe of yards opposite from Snow.

Fighting Snow was rather like fighting a train in Lightning's mind. Lightning had noticed that when Fang and Snow sparred it was completely different from when she and Fang sparred.. Fang was hardly ever serious with Snow even when he pinned her to the ground, she was laughing and smiling while still taunting Snow but nowhere near the amount she did with Lightning. Their sparring always turned into wrestling and while Snow had the most strength, Fang had the ability to maneuver him to use it against him. Once he picked up too much speed, it was a matter of making him lose his footing and she could easily knock him down and win. In a Sentinel spar, you weren't supposed to move from your position unless you were the one attacking but Fang always argued that in battle no one followed rules.

This type of sparring always started off slowly. One would guard, the other would dart in quickly and attack. They only had a certain amount of time before the guard was allowed to fight back. Vanille, ebing the referee, would call out when that time was. Then it switched as the other guarded and the other attacked. When they were l'cie, Fang had easily withstood most of Snow's punches but Lightning wasn't so sure about now. Eventually, they would get bored with that and switch to wrestling. Lightning assumed they would instantly switch to wrestling or at least Fang would swerve to avoid punches.

She felt her arms drop down, as annoying as the pair of them were this style always showed off their strengths and was interesting to watch.

"Steelguard!" Yelled Snow as he hunkered down into position. Fang laughed and ran at him. She headed straight for him, bringing her right fist back in anticipation for the punch. Snow braced himself for the impact and at the last second Fang stuck out a her left arm, grabbed Snow's shoulder and used it to swing herself to be behind him. She let out a flurry of punches up and down his spine and as he turned to react, she danced away.

"Time!" Called Vanille, knowing it was a bit futile since Fang was already gone.

"Too slow!" Fang slowly settled down and stood in a casual pose, one hand on hip that jutted out a bit. With the other hand, she beckoned Snow. "Come and get it." He nodded and charged, looking like an angry rhino. Snow knew he was a bit too big to dance around, he preferred direct force attacks and Fang knew it. He brought back a fist and aimed for Fang's right shoulder. He was surprised when it hit, at the last second she had moved into a bracing position but he had expected her to dodge the attack. He hadn't used his full strength but she seemed to block most of it all the same.

"Going easy big guy?" Fang commented as he delivered a blow to her left shoulder. This one was stronger and he noticed she still seemed okay. He already had his right fist ready for his final blow and it was already flying before he even thought of toning down the power.

Lightning gasped and clutched at Fang's necklace, while both Hope and Sazh lurched forward. Though Fang had moved her body to go along with the direction and force of the punch, the crunching sound her face made when it impacted still sounded sick as she crashed to the ground.

"Time!" Came a bit of a squeak from Vanille, whose happiness had turned to horror. Sazh and Hope stopped when they realized Fang was up and moving.

Fang retaliated instantly with a kick to the side of Snow's head. He backed up practically ignoring the kick, staring at Fang.

"I didn't mean to, I'm sorry."

"Are we sparring or having an apology party here?" Fang grinned, though her jaw was a nearly black tinged with purple and speaking caused even more pain. She advanced, ignoring the rules. Snow moved his arms out to block against her, she darted around him and did her famous move of kicking at the back of his legs to force him to the ground. She caught his shoulders from behind and pulled, making sure he fell all the way. He fell fast and hard, the bruises on his back from Fangs earlier treatment crying out in protest.

Fang lifted a leg and placed a foot on his chest.

"Victory." She declared softly while the party cheered. Snow only laughed partly grateful that it was over. Fang walked away and Vanille ran off to catch her. Gadot came to offer Snow a hand to get up.

"She's some woman, isn't she? Taking hits like that." He commented while pulling Snow up. Snow could only nod.

"Let me see, let me see!" Vanille whined at Fang. Fang stopped and grinned. "You idiot, that was asking for trouble." Fang shrugged.

"It was fun." Vanille rolled her eyes.

"You could have had just as much fun dodging his attacks. Now stop talking." Fang still grinned, though she winced slightly as Vanille put a hand on her bruised jaw. "You cracked it. I don't know how much I can do."

"Do what you can." Fang said and then added. "Please." Vanille nodded and began muttering a Cure spell. The bruising turned to a greenish-purple colour and Vanille removed her hand.

"I think that got it but you'll be miserable for the next couple of days. Drinking more won't help." Vanille scowled at her. Fang simply grinned.

"Thanks Vanille."

As everyone began to disperse, either back into the house or just hanging around the yard, Snow decided to light a fire. As Fang passed behind him, she resisted the temptation to help him light it and looked for Lightning. She spotted her talking to Serah and headed over.

"Was that really necessary?" Serah's tone was disapproving and Fang winced, hoping she could prove to Serah that she wasn't a complete idiot. Lightning sighed and crossed her arms, Fang's necklaces jingling in her hand.

"They used to spar all the time. Fang and Snow really get along, they're bros or something. They both just had a little too much and forgot that they don't have the same abilities anymore." Fang was surprised by Lightning's defensiveness, she had always acted extremely annoyed about the spars. Then again, she always acted annoyed about sparring with Fang at first until she mellowed out a bit.

"What about Fang's face?" Lightning almost laughed.

"Fang's been hit in the face before. She'll live. Vanille would have stopped it instantly if it was bad." Serah nodded, she knew Vanille had been one of the best healers and even though she wasn't l'cie anymore, she still was amazing at dealing with wounds and illnesses.

"Hey Fang, I think you'll be needing this." Lebreau stepped in front of Fang, offering a whiskey bottle. Fang noticed it wasn't the same one as before but took it anyways. Both Lightning and Serah turned at the sound of Lebreau's greeting. Serah scurried over and went up close to Fang's jaw.

"That looks terrible. Are you sure you're okay? Lightning, look at this." Lightning glanced up and took off Fang's necklaces.

"It's okay Serah, Vanille looked at it. I'm good to go." Fang tried to placate Serah even though she still looked worried, peering anxiously at the bruise. Lightning placed the necklaces over Fang's head and onto her neck.

"If she says she's fine, Serah she's fine." Fang took the opportunity to swig at the whiskey bottle, trying to hide her grimace of pain as she swallowed.

"This is a party eh? Let's party!"

...

Vanille and Hope were walking hand in hand down the street. Bhakti was in Hope's other arm, occasionally chirping his own input into their conversation. They had snuck out of the party after Hope offered to take her to her house. She knew Fang would be annoyed when she eventually noticed that Vanille had left, but Vanille knew Lightning would take care of Fang even if she didn't want to.

Vanille could hardly keep her eyes off of Hope, he seemed so different from the boy she had first met. He know had a say in his life and his own purposes for doing things which showed through his actions. No longer was he the scared, cowardly little boy. He was even different from what she remembered near the end of their journey. She knew that she was older and supposively more mature, but his maturity and seriousness shone. She liked this though and it also helped that he had added a couple of inches in height. He was slightly taller than her now, a little more filled out. He noticed her staring and offered his small smile, his face a bit unsure. She almost smiled at it, there was something that was truly Hope.

"Something wrong?"

"Nothing at all." Hope nodded.

He lead her through a couple of back alleys and over an old decaying fence that proved to be a bit of an adventure as they passed Bhakti over top of it. As they reached the door, Hope fished out the keys that Lightning had given him a couple of months earlier. He remembered how strange she had been about when he asked for a copy.

''''''

"Hey Light, can you get me some keys to Fang and Vanille's?" Her face stayed impassive, which immediately warned Hope she was on the defensive.

"Why?" She went back to her paperwork, ignoring him.

"I just want to.. check it out. Maybe dust it, keep it clean." He offered weakly. "Please Light? They already started on the orphanage, it's just the one place..."

"I'll get you a key next week." She cut in, cold and sharp. Hope smiled.

"Really? Great! Thanks Lightning!"

"Get out of my office and go back to training." Hope nodded, waving a goodbye even though it was past six and nobody was training right now.

Later that week a key appeared in his locker and he went to the house. Upon opening the door, he saw how clean it was and note on a table.

_It's your job now._

He couldn't keep himself from nodding and replying softly. "Sure Light, sure."

'''

Hope had stuck to his job and came by the house often, cleaning it up and occasionally adding furniture that he found and fixed up. He noticed that Lightning had been there once in awhile after she had given him a key, but never when he was there.

He put the key in the lock and turned to Vanille.

"Welcome home." Vanille gasped and scurried inside, admiring the cleanliness and new furniture. Hope followed her around, answering her questions and commenting on things that had been added. The whole time his mind was filled with worry. He and Vanille had known each other for such a short time and would she really want to date a kid like him? Sure she wasn't that much older if you subtracted the 201 years in crystal but was she just being nice to him on the journey? Feeling bad for the little kid who lost his Mom? These questions and others kept nagging at him and making him worry that Vanille didn't feel the same way.

"Hope?" Vanille was looking at him curiously, head slightly tilted, hands clasped behind her back, green eyes peering into his. He felt himself jump a little as he came back to reality. "Did you hear what I said?"

"No, sorry Vanille." He dropped his eyes, beginning to look more anxious. Vanille tried to hide her smile.

"Something on your mind Hope?" She stepped closer unable to hide her grin.

"No." He answered instantly. "Well, yes, umm." He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck, leaving it there awkwardly. "Vanille, do you… do you.." She reached up for the arm and gently guided it down, leading his hand to rest against her cheek.

"Do I what, Hope?" She gave him a coy smile, leaning her head into his hand. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights and began to back away in nervousness, the hand on her cheek shaking. She almost laughed, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She pulled back and smiled.

"Did I answer your question?"

"You certainly did." Hope replied and kissed her.

...

Fang was drunk. She hadn't really intended on being smashed, but she had gone and lost Vanille, and spent the better part of an hour looking for her before Lebreau informed her between giggles that Vanille and Hope had left. Fang commented that Lebreau was a jerk and Yuj swept in to take away the enraged Lebreau. Lightning, who was back to being sober, had watched the interaction.

"Come on you lush, let's go." Fang staggered while turning around.

"Sunshine!" She stumbled her way over and swung an arm around Lightning's shoulder. "Where did Vanille go?"

"Probably to see the house. Why, did you want to go?" In a normal state Fang would have been surprised by the statement and would have commented on it. Fang leaned her head on Lightning's shoulder.

"No, she's probably going to make out with him or something. I don't even wanna think about it." Fang lifted her head up and stared at Lightning's nose. Lightning began to feel flustered and Fang grinned at managing to annoy her.

"What are you staring at? Stop it." She pushed Fang away, who laughed.

"Let's go to the lake. I want to go there." Lightning sighed.

"Fine, let's go."

As they walked down the streets Lightning noticed that Fang, though still far gone, was completely at ease and almost back to walking normally. Lightning was on edge, since she had time off she didn't know who was supposed to be out patrolling tonight and she doubted if Snow had delegated any officers on duty. Most likely they had been at the party.

"Why so jumpy, Light?" Fang drawled. Lightning scowled and relaxed, realizing Fang wasn't in a state of mind to pursue it.

"Didn't there used to be problems of monsters coming into the city? We can never get rid of them." Fang glanced at Lightning and stared down the street to the slowly appearing lake. "Snow put up fences, but they get broken down. Erewhon promised us more supplies, but who knows if that will happen." Fang grinned.

"You should have seen Oerba in its prime." Fang looked wistful, smiling at the fond memories. "We may not be as fancy as Cocoon, but this was our version of a bustling metropolis. Sure, we have houses and things, but we had a culture that was unmatched." Fang paused, lost for a second. "People coming and going constantly, traveling, selling, trading, passing on news. Monsters hardly ever came near." Fang stopped to tap a finger against her temple. "Unless they were deranged. We had the occasional herd stampede, but they were easy enough to divert." Fang sighed, slowing as they reached the edge of the beach.

"To go hunting was a skill. It's easy now, walk out your front door and there's something to kill. They've gotten too used to having nobody here." Fang tried to hide the feeling of sadness that sprang up, but it was obvious by her face. "You would have loved it Lightning. Maybe not as orderly and controlled as you're used to, but wonderful all the same." Fang tried to smile and failed. The alcohol had left its happy state and turned to one of depression. Fang looked at Lightning's face, which was expressive for once and made Fang feel a bit better.

"They'll stop coming around once they realize people are living here again." Lightning raised an eyebrow.

"It's been a year." Fang laughed and swung an arm around Lightning, who nearly froze from the unexpected contact. She liked Fang's arm around her and really didn't want to push it away.

"Maybe they just don't like you, Sunshine." Lightning chuckled, earning a smirk from Fang and then pushed her away ignoring her feelings that were screaming at her to let Fang stay near.

"I am going to make you drink so much water when we get home."

…

Okay. I don't like something in this chapter, but I am tired of fighting with it.

I will go back and fix it.

Thanks for all reviews and follows.

Feel free to point out spelling mistakes.


	8. Chapter 8

Bartholomew Esthiem had poured his life into the new city. He sat on the council and while he was not one of the more powerful members, he did have one thing. Popularity. After losing his wife, he had almost gone into a black spiral of despair. One that Hope had dragged him right out of and that behavior from Hope was something Bartholomew attributed to Lieutenant Farron, Hope had learned to accept things and to get on with his life while encouraging his father to do the same. Bartholomew had learned to respect his son and appreciate how similar he was to Nora. When Hope left, Bartholomew missed him but respected his decision and was all the more glad Hope was with his friends in Oerba rather than in this city of constant politics. Without him, Bartholomew had taken a stronger role in help shaping the city and soon ended up with a seat on the council that came quite unexpectedly according to him.

Today he had a meeting with the council to give orders to Jihl Nabaat. He didn't think much of Nabaat, nothing Hope said about her was glowing but she did any task asked of her and caused no trouble.

Bartholomew gazed around the room watching people greet each other and noticing others already sitting and shuffling papers.

The room itself was large, similar to a courtroom that Bartholomew found a little repulsive since it was meant to be an open space where all were welcomed. The council sat in a half circle at the front of the room on a raised platform. Each member had their own chair and a desk space in front of them provided by the barrier blocking them from the open space on the floor for speakers. They sat across from rows of benches intended for the public but today sat empty. Rescued art from Cocoon decorated the walls and high up windows in the tall room let in light.

"I call this council meeting to order." A man who sat on the far right of the circle spoke into a microphone on his desk. Kurt Gubritch was by no means the head of council but he was in charge of keeping the meetings in order and following protocol correctly. Bartholomew liked him; the man had been a judge on Cocoon and was always fair if a bit strict.

People began to respond to the order by breaking from their groups and heading to their respective spots.

"Hey Bartholomew." A woman took her seat in the desk next to his. A tanned woman with light blue eyes and long black hair tied back into two braids with feathers appearing occasionally in a braid's weave, with many golden bangles adorning her left wrist and a beaded necklace draping on her neck. She had opted for a light blue blouse and blacks slacks, though Bartholomew noticed she had not forgone the midcalf leather boots. Tira Jasif had been a leader of a rebellion of which had most members had been stamped out including her husband. She was one of the first to land on Pulse after the crystallization and instantly had begun to take control, ordering the GC around like she owned them. They decided she had the talent and gave her a division in charge of keeping the peace. In a sense, she was a bit of a Jihl Nabaat replacement but Tira was one of the few who advocated on Jihl's behalf insisting that they shouldn't waste abilities.

This impressed Bartholomew, he didn't understand why Tira so vehemently defended Nabaat, under Disley's commands her rebellion was ended. A creating of a l'cie was faked so they had an excuse to purge the area. Tira seemed to hold no grudges and had once admitted that she didn't see a point to them. They helped no one, not even the person holding it, so why dwell on the past that would only ruin your focus on the present and future. Bartholomew had noticed that she had looked sad when she said it and didn't know how to ask if she had ever truly grieved for her husband.

"Settle, settle. Let's begin."

"Bring her in, we have many things to get through today."

...

Jihl Nabaat was standing outside the room, trying to maintain her composure. She remembered when she had been the one on the other side and how she tore into people daring to question the government. Her saving grace of today was the she was only here to receive orders and as long as she didn't question them; there would be no interrogation.

She glanced over to her second in command, Clash. He was absolutely invaluable to her; he had always been there and had been the one to find her after she was left for dead. As a teenager coming from the slums and making it into the military he had been bullied and beaten, and had been in several knife fights. One incident had almost led to his death, leaving a scar across his neck and silencing his words forever.

Jihl had been in the foster system and ended up in government care along with a few hundred other kids. They noticed how tactical she was, planning all of her mischief and making the care workers job more difficult by the day. She never worked with the group preferring to work alone. She sometimes had allies and cohorts but they were there to simply take the blame so she could get away unmarked. She was given her stock education and shoved into a military training program. She knew she was there for a reason; very few other people from the system had made it there. She presumed one of the only reasons the government bothered with orphans was for people like her, ones with talent and a hunger for power.

She had met Clash around the age nineteen. She had been walking the grounds of the academy heading to her room when she noticed a group standing in a circle and jeering. It was a group of boys who thought they were elite because their parents were officials. Military academy was a joke for them; they were only here as a formality and apparently to make everyone else's lives miserable. Normally, she would have ignored the behavior but she watched as boy pushed another to the ground and start punching. She noticed that while he tried to retaliate he made no noise at all. No cries for help or even swearing back at the group. He was skinny and malnourished, not seeming to have enough energy hit back but she could tell he wasn't trying.

Jihl didn't understand why she felt concern for him; she had mostly ignored everyone who ever tried to make friends with her. Part of her wondered if it was because he probably didn't want to be friends and even less so if she rescued him. She walked away.

In the evening, she went down and outside again and found him, sitting up against a tree covered in bruises with his eyes closed.

"You should hit them back. I could tell you weren't trying." He opened his eyes the colour of gun smoke, looked at her, shrugged and closed them again.

"Maybe if you didn't dress like a goth freak they would leave you alone." He did tend to favour black, even if all of his clothing was military standard. His messy black hair flopped against his face, she was surprised they didn't make him cut it. He shrugged again, not bothering to look at her. He had heard of Jihl, a vicious girl filled with determination.

"I can help you."

His eyes opened and he looked up at her, left eyebrow slightly raised. Jihl smiled at him.

"I'm not waiting all day." She walked away. Clash sat there watching her, confusion etched into his face. He shrugged, got up and followed her.

From that day forward they were inseparable.

A few weeks later, the boys were expelled after having a party that the director of the board happened to show up to after being accidentally emailed an invite.

Jihl became his voice and he her sounding board. She named him Clash, because she couldn't be bothered to have him write out her name for her. He went along with it; it was better than the name that made him miserable. She had discovered his name a few weeks later but quickly decided his new name would be more advantageous. Clash knew all of her secrets, her plans, and her hopes. She hadn't intended to use him that way, but he was her only friend and the only one in the world that still cared about her. Or at least pretended too.

As she moved up through the military, she always demanded that she have Clash. She insisted he was the best subordinate ever, having been trained constantly by her since he'd been in the Academy. She was always granted that request.

In reality, he would have made a fantastic assassin and keeping him with her wasn't really to his advantage. She made sure he got all the perks and more, even though he didn't really care about them.

Clash didn't always go along with what she said though. She held his opinions in the highest regard, after hearing her plan about using the boy to trap the l'cie he had walked off and not responded to anything for a week. Looking back, she wished she had listened to him but knew that she never would have.

"Why do you still have to dress like a goth boy?" Clash looked up, his black air flipping a little bit. It was only about two inches long; she had made him cut it a day after they met. He was dressed in all black, as per usual. He had grown since his Academy days, nowhere near the behemoth size of Snow, but he had powerful shoulders for a lean guy. He pulled out a notebook and flipped through the pages and showed her the word.

"Reputation? Really? Well, I suppose that's true." Clash shrugged and put away the notebook. He was often called Jihl's shadow, the black only added more to it. Jihl sighed and looked down the hall.

"Think it'll be okay?" She motioned with her head towards the door. Clash shrugged again. Jihl glared at him.

"Thanks for the motivational support." Clash shot up straight, flashed her a big grin and put both thumbs up. A second later, her was back to leaning against the wall, acting all Mr. Casual.

"You jerk." Jihl pushed him playfully. "You're no help. I'm docking your pay." Clash shrugged and looked into her eyes, his face still serious.

"I know." She stared back into his eyes beginning a staring contest, not noticing the large wooden door swing open.

"Commander Nabaat? They are ready for you now." A secretary peered nervously at them. Jihl turned to look at her.

"Yes, thank you." Jihl straightened up and followed the secretary in, Clash right behind her.

As the door swung closed behind them, Clash slowly moved over and leaned against the wall at the back of the room. Jihl followed the girl, a slip of a thing in Jihl's mind. She kept her head up, her face a look of determination and respect. Her boots clicked softly against the floor as she stood facing the half circle that was the council.

"Commander Nabaat." In the centre of the half circle sat a man dressed smartly in a suit and silver hair that flowed down and over his shoulders. Gliko Santhok was not a nice man in the sense that he had absolutely no time for pleasantries or even remote human friendliness. It was extremely off putting, but no one could deny the way he formed the council and arranged the evacuations off of Cocoon.

Jihl nodded slightly, keeping her head high and her arms the left hand clasping the right wrist behind her back.

"The council has decided to send you to Oerba. You have two weeks to prepare and you will take a small division with you. You will find outlines and plans on your desk. Commandar Amodar will be brought here so you will have complete charge of Oerba." Jihl only nodded. Santhok continued. "Unless you have any questions." Jihl shook her head.

"I do Gliko." Bartholomew stood up looking straight at Gliko.

"Councilman Esthiem, please feel free." Gliko's tone was cold and almost threatening. Beside Bartholomew, Tira was scowling and looking like she wanted to jump up.

"Why are you bringing Amodar here? He knows the area better than anyone, would it not be better to leave him there to assist Nabaat?" Jihl looked over to Bartholomew, impressed he would ask such a question. Clash had told her this was one of the infamous l'cies' fathers.

Santhok smiled a little. It sent chills up Jihl's spine.

"I am sure one of Commander Amodar's lieutenants will be able to assist Commandar Nabaat." Bartholomew's face twitched, that was not an answer.

"Thank you for the clarification" He replied diplomatically and sat down. Tira looked over at him, rage on her face. He placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. She began to calm down, though she still looked furious.

Gliko Santhok looked back over to Jihl and past her, to where Clash was standing.

"And as for your shadow." Jihl almost flinched and couldn't hide the wince on her face. She recovered and waited. "I suppose he'll just follow you anyways. Dismissed Nabaat." JIhl nodded and turned around walking out. Clash joined her at the back of the room and followed her out. It was true, when Jihl was allowed to return, Clash had been placed in a different section. He ignored that and showed up in her office not an hour after she started. He had spent all of his days and nights at the hospital watching over Jihl worried that they would kill her out of convenience. He never told Jihl that he had been right to stay there. Two weeks after him hardly moving from her side, they gave in and assured her safety if he did a couple of jobs. Jihl never asked about that time but she noticed that certain people from the old government simply hadn't survived the crystallization of Cocoon.

Outside the room, Clash tapped the back of his hand gently against Jihl's shoulder.

"Not here, let's go to my office."

Back at the office, Jihl sat in her chair mulling over her new orders and looking over the details they had sent her. Clash had his feet up on her desk and his arms crossed.

"I am a decoy. Or something of that nature. If this is friendly, it works out fine for them. If not, I die, take the blame and no one cares. This is clever. Pulling Amodar is a smart move." Clash looked up at her, nodding in agreement. Jihl sighed and leaned her forehead on her hand. "You don't have to come. This might be a death sentence." Clash smiled and shrugged. Jihl nodded in thanks. She closed her eyes, leaning her head further into her hand.

Clash almost jumped when she looked up smiling.

"Clash, do you remember who lives in Oerba?" Clash shook his head and Jihl laughed a high-pitched laugh with a bit of panic.

"This really is a death sentence."

…

Lightning was sitting at the kitchen table when Vanille came skipping through the backdoor.

"Morning." She said quietly. Vanille jumped and turned mid air.

"Lightning! I didn't see you there!" Vanille recovered quickly as per usual and sat down, smiling. "Morning to you too. What are you doing?"

"I used to get up early, read the newspaper and drink coffee. Hard habit to break." Lightning replied honestly. Vanille nodded slowly and Lightning wondered if Oerba had ever bothered with newspapers. The way Fang described the culture, everyone was super social and news passed easily through towns. It did explain Vanille's personality.

"Vanille." Lightning paused, feeling a bit awkward. She hadn't really ever had any heart to hearts with Vanille, but she knew there was no one else to ask. "Fang really misses the old Oerba. Did we taint this town?" Vanille's smile faded a bit.

Lightning had always admired Vanille's persistent optimism. While she could be irritating at times, it was an ability Lightning could never attain. Vanille managed to make everyone feel better and raise enthusiasm at the drop of a hat. Lightning felt a bit of worry nag at her when Vanille's face turned serious.

"No, you didn't. Fang tends to ignore what was wrong. Oerba wasn't all that wonderful; the war changed everything. Yes, our people are gone but Fang and I are still here. We can help influence and shape what happens in this city. We have a chance to show what Oerba used to be like. Fang forgets that. Thinks that people from Cocoon won't catch on." Vanille paused. "Actually, I think she's more afraid that people won't care."

"Cocoon vipers learning culture?" Lightning grinned. "Impossible."

"Exactly." Vanille smiled back. "Just give her time. When we were here last, we didn't have much time to process what happened. We both feel a bit guilty being the only ones left." Vanille stopped and stared out the window, lost in memories. A few seconds later she turned back to Lightning and her smile returned.

"Fang will adapt and spring right back." Vanille scowled slightly. "Drinking doesn't help this process." Lightning nodded and sipped her coffee.

"What about you?" Vanille felt surprise bubble up in her. Lightning concerned about her feelings? She knew Lightning was not one to admit concern unless she thought something was affecting the whole group. Vanille had always known Lightning meant well and happily ignored her sometimes grumpy behaviour. But to have Lightning outright ask her was unexpected.

"I'm okay. It makes me sad sometimes, but even more determined to show people what living here was.." Vanille paused and smiled. "Is like. Hope said he'd help."

"Oh?" Lightning commented, not surprised Hope had offered his help to aid Vanille's cause.

"Oh yeah!" Vanille hopped up and hugged Lightning who was still sitting in her chair. "Thank you for saving our house!"

"I knew you would be back." Lightning replied softly.

Vanille squeaked and let go of Lightning as a loud bang echoed throughout the kitchen. Lightning looked up at the ceiling.

"Sounds like sleeping beauty woke up."

…..

Fang woke up with a slight headache. She stretched out and paused, trying to figure out where she was and why her jaw hurt. It all came rushing back a couple of seconds later. Sparring with Snow, walking to the lake, Lightning making her drink at least five glasses of water and then dragged her upstairs to Vanille's because she insisted Vanille wouldn't be back until morning. Fang pulled herself into an upright position and then noticed someone staring at her.

Iskote was sitting by the bed, watching her.

"Hey, pup. Morning to you too." Iskote wagged his tail in response to her voice. Fang sighed and rolled herself off the bed onto the floor landing with a loud bang. Iskote jumped and yelped running into the hall and peering nervously around the door frame.

"Sorry puppy." Fang stretched like a cat, her arms reaching out in front of her and curving her spine until she felt it pop and smiled at pressure release. She looked at Iskote and stayed on her hands and knees, grinning at the dog. She jumped up slightly smacking her hands lightly against the floor. Iskote barked in excitement and raced forward excited to play. He ran forward snapping a bit and Fang repeated the trick, which made him turn tail and repeat the motion back at her with a furiously wagging tail.

Lightning appeared in the doorway and hid her smile. Fang ignored her and crawled forward reaching out to pull on of Iskote's paws.

"What exactly are you doing?" Lightning's eyebrow was up again, though her face held a hint of a smirk.

"Playing." Fang said simply. "Want to join?" She wrestled Isokte with one hand, staring up at Lightning innocently.

"Maybe next time." Lightning leaned down to pet Iskote, who instantly turned and tried to snap at her thinking it was a game.

"I'll hold you to that."

"Lightning! Lightning!" Vanille came hurtling up the stairs, holding a ringing cell phone in her hands. "It's ringing!" Lightning suppressed a laugh as she grabbed the phone, silently surprised that Hope was calling her. She flipped it open and held it up.

"What's wrong?" She walked out of the room and down the hallway.

"You look terrible!" Vanille commented to Fang, who slowly stood up. Vanille ran up forcing Fang to turn her head with one hand and using the other to inspect her jaw.

"My nose, Vanille, don't break my nose."

"I will if you ever do something this stupid again. Have you seen your jaw?"

Fang's jaw was now sporting nice purple green bruises. Along with the worse than usual bed head hair and the slightly dazed look to her eyes, Fang did look like she was something the cat had dragged in.

"Can't say I have. It's fine Vanille." Fang pushed Vanille away gently. "Won't happen again, alright?"

"You're a bad liar." Vanille's hands went to her hips as Lightning walked back in.

"Light! Defend me." Fang called out, her voice slowly faiing as she caught Lightning's confused look. "What?" Fang questioned. Her own face turned to one of questioning concern, the dazed eyes were bright and alert fixed on Lightning's face.

"That was Hope saying Amodar wants to see me. I have to go."

"I thought you were forced to take holidays." Vanille supplied instantly having been told this by Hope. Lightning nodded, not really looking at either of them. Fang recognized that look. Something was wrong.

"Did Hope say why?"

"No. You'll have to entertain yourselves for a bit. I'll be back soon." Lightning turned and walked out.

…..

Leaving a wary Fang and enthusiastically waving Vanille, Lightning hurried down the street. Lightning had almost smiled at Fang's instant caution, Fang really could read Lightning way too well. Did that mean anything? Lightning sighed and shook her head to clear it as she rounded a corner.

_Doesn't mean anything. Fang is just like that. Once you're in her pack, she'll protect you until she stops breathing. But still._

Fang treated her differently, didn't she? The teasing and the nicknames, no one else got that. Fang was always hard on Hope but Lightning suspected it was her own way of toughening him up. She had once caught the pair trading weapons. She could tell Fang didn't care about learning the boomerang, she knew how to throw things. But she had been carefully watching Hope, instructing him on how to use the lance and even how to use it as a staff and how it could be a useful defense. When Lightning found them, the second Fang spotted her, Fang had instantly hurled the boomerang at Hope and stolen her lance back yelling at him to be on guard at all times. Lightning grinned despite herself, she was pretty sure those lessons had continued though she never caught them again.

But when Fang had looked at her with that face, she had instantly wanted to spill out her worries to her and hear Fang's thoughts. When Fang wasn't being annoying she had a logical mind that was similar to Lightning's.

Lightning sighed softly and increased her pace. There was going to be no easy solution to this.

…

After thoroughly cowing a newbie standing guard at the gates, Lightning stormed into the tin shack and towards Amodar's office. A desk stood outside his office meant for Amodar's second in command, Brix who hardly ever occupied the post. Lightning noted with surprise that Brix was at the desk and acknowledged her with a brief nod while continuing to stride into Amodar's office. Brix shrugged, she was no secretary and no one ever got in the way of a pissed off Farron.

"Farron." Amodar was sitting at his desk, not even bothering to look up from the papers. Lightning steeled herself and Amodar watched her face slowly drain of emotion. Most commanders would love that ability in their soldiers, the ability to leave behind all emotions and ties and just be. It only made Amodar sad. Lightning grabbed her right wrist with her left hand behind her back, a soldier's neutral position and meant to be seen as nonthreatening. Amodar almost wanted to laugh, it would only take Farron a split second to have her gunblade out and firing off rounds.

"No time for formality Farron. I got sent orders from Erewhon today." Lightning suppressed the urge to raise her eyebrow. Amodar sighed. "They asked me to go to the city to provide military expertise." Lightning stayed quiet, knowing that there had to be more.

"They had a plane flyover this morning and take aerial photographs. They have been given permission to land here and you will be given the photos. I need you to check out the area they photographed, it shouldn't take you more than couple of days. I am sending Esthiem and his new group but I need you to go because you'll see things that they won't." Lightning nodded and Amodar almost yelled at the emotionless state.

"Dammit Farron, you are one of the few that actually knows this area. I don't know what the city wants or what's happening but you know as well as I do this is not right. Speak freely." Amodar stood up and glared at Lightning.

"They can't only be wanting a patrol done by us. Taking you leaves us a lack of control and they certainly are not going to leave us in charge." Lightning stated. Amodar slowly sat back down and stared at the wall. Lightning felt her head tip slightly to the right. "Sir?"

"They are sending Jihl Nabaat." Lightning's eye widened.

"I refuse to patrol, sir. I am staying in Oerba." Amodar shook his head.

"Look Farron, you're the only one I can leave this with. I know you have every reason to hate Nabaat but we don't get a choice in the matter. Do you think I want to go to the city?" Lightning stood in her solider stance, Amodar rolled his eyes a little, he considered Lightning a friend and would like her to react like one, not a robot soldier.

"Look I know Esthiem could handle this by himself and that he would say word for word what he finds but I want you there. You have good instincts Farron, go and use them." Lightning nodded. "Run it however you like but get a feel for the landscape. Something is happening and I want to know what. Just go do the patrol. You call the hours and the shots. This is our town, not the big city." Lightning nodded. "Brix will be in charge while you're gone. I'll try to return as soon as possible. Esthiem is organizing the patrol as we speak. Get what you need and go. Dismissed."

Lightning turned to leave and as she walked out the door, Amodar walked over to her and clasped a hand on her shoulder.

"Farron. I'm sorry. I know your friends just returned." Lightning met Amodar's eyes that looked sad and slightly guilty. "When you get back, you have my permission to teach Nabaat whose in charge." Lightning nodded.

"Sir yes, sir."

…

River landed the plane smoothly, ignoring the two men with her. They had said nothing to her, simply handing her coordinates and telling her to follow them exactly. She was interested when they told her they would be landing at Oerba's military base. She hadn't had the chance to radio Sazh, but had a noticed a certain fro standing outside the gates next to a giant blonde behemoth.

As she slowly the plane and stopped the engines she ignored the two men and jumped out, heading for the gates.

"Sazh!" She called out. A guard neatly stepped in front of her.

"Sorry ma'am. You can't leave the base." River stared at the open gates and looked at the solider.

"Excuse me? I just want to go talk to my friend."

"Sorry ma'am." He stated again.

"Fine, then let him come in."

"No one in or out ma'am." River threw up her hands in frustration and Snow began to step forward.

"Don't even bother Snow." A women appeared beside River, a gunblade strapped to her hip, a military issue duffel bag slung across her back and envelopes that had just come from River's plane. She turned to address the soldier.

"Kinsek! This pilot just landed in our base and wants to go discuss things with one of the only pilots that brings supplies to Oerba. I suggest that if you want to continue being fed that you let her through." Lightning paused. "And back in." Kinsek gulped and nodded. "Back to your post." River grinned.

"Thanks!" She noticed that Lightning was carrying photos. "Did we do those for you?"

"Believe me, I wish you hadn't." Lightning muttered as they reached Snow and Sazh.

"Snow, I'm going out on a patrol in an hour. Put out lookouts on the edge of the city until I'm back. Tell Serah not to worry and don't do anything stupid." Lightning turned to Sazh.

"Sorry that we haven't had a chance to talk or catch up." With that, she strode off. The three watched her go and Sazh broke the silence by chuckling.

"Nothing ever stops Lightning when she's on a warpath." Snow nodded in agreement while River's face turned to one of delight.

"That was Lightning Farron?!" Sazh nodded.

"Isn't she a delightful ball of sunshine?" River's face turned to confusion and Snow grinned.

"Sazh said you brought some military people." River nodded.

"Yes, they did aerial photographs and scans of the river on the other side of the lake. Once we reached the ocean, we turned around and headed here. Looks like Lightning got the photos, but none of the scan information. I don't know what they were scanning for though they wouldn't say a word to me." River glanced back at the base, the men were back at the plane waiting.

"And it looks like I have to go. Sorry I don't have more for you Sazh. I'll call you if anything else shows up." She turned and began to walk back into the base, daring the guard to come bother her.

"Thanks River!" Sazh called and looked at Snow. "Come on man. You better get those people set up or Lightning will have our heads."

….

Lightning opened her door, feeling a headache coming on. What was happening? The city usually ignored them unless they wanted more recruits trained. As she walked into the kitchen, she noticed Fang sitting at the table looking strangely pensive.

"Where's Vanille?" Lightning asked as she realized she could hear no other noises in the house.

"Serah was here. Invited her to check out the hospital since she was impressed on how Vanille had fixed my face. They took Iskote because Serah had Blue." Lightning had her own questions about Fang's jaw but now wasn't the time. Fang had been lazy and loose with her answer, which was strange since last night she had outright refused to discuss it. No, Fang was focused on something else right now. Fang was like a dog with a bone; once she had it she wasn't going to let it go. Lightning put the photos down on the table, dropped her bag and waited. Fang looked up to Lightning.

"Vanille told me that you said that you knew we would be back. How could you know that?" Lightning couldn't believe this was what Fang was on about. Why did it matter? She felt annoyance bubble up in her and tried to suppress it.

"You had to come back. End of discussion." She motioned to the photographs, which Fang ignored.

"Wait up Lightning, hold yer horses. What if we didn't wake up?"

"Then you didn't wake up. Are we done now? I have things to do."

"Hell no, we aren't. You knew we would be back but if we didn't wake up we wouldn't be back. That makes no sense." Fang pestered, trying to understand. Lightning gave in to her anger.

"We would have come and found you! We were going to, Hope and I. We couldn't stand to live in this world without you, the world you saved and could not enjoy. Crystallization is a poor prize, you never see the people you saved and the people you made friends with." Fang noticed Lightning wouldn't look at her and her use of the word you.

"I already did that once Light, I wouldn't have wanted to go through it again." Fang said quietly, staring down at the ground. "You were going to come find us?"

"Yes. We planned on leaving three months from now. Sazh had already tried to find and wake you but we had wanted to try anyways. Hope wanted to wait until the city was more settled and he needed more training since we aren't l'cie anymore. You should see him with that 'toy' as you call it." Lightning paused and stared out the window. "You would do the same for me." Fang nodded.

"Sorry Light. I just.."

"It doesn't matter Fang. At least not now. I need you to look at these." She gestured to the photographs once more. Fang certainly did not want to leave the topic, Lightning was avoiding something but she had noticed how miserable Lightning had looked when she had walked in.

"I have to go patrol up the river. They took aerial photographs but they want more details, groundwork. Hope and I are taking a patrol, we should be back in a couple of days." Fang was silent. Lightning stared at the ground, suddenly embarrassed.

"Look, I want to take you. I know it would cut our time in half but something's not right. Erewhon's sudden interest in our surroundings, Amodar being called in. I told Snow to keep his eyes open but he is not good at being subtle, I know you'll notice if something is wrong."

"Light, how bad is this?"

"I don't know." Fang paled slightly, she had never seen Lightning that worried. "It could be nothing, it could be something." Lightning stopped and looked right into Fang's eyes. "They are sending Jihl Nabaat.'

"WHAT!" Fang yelled, trying to control her anger, she was visibly shaking. "That vile power hungry bitch? Why is she still even alive!" Lightning had been aware the Jihl was alive but didn't think the council stupid enough to ever send her here.

"I don't know Fang but Amodar left me in charge not her. You can kill her when I get back, hopefully she won't be here before that."

"I hope she is." Fang seethed. Lightning nodded.

"Can you put these in order? Maybe write down some notes on trails nearby or anything you think of." Fang nodded and began to spread out the photos. Lightning scavenged and found a notebook and pen for her to write in. "I'm going to go pack." Fang nodded, immersing herself in the project trying not to think about Nabaat even though her hands still shook.

Fang efficiently organized the photos as Lightning disappeared upstairs. She numbered the photos and began to make notes. She hadn't been there in two hundred years or so, but she could still see a couple of cut throughs and knew what types of creatures would be living there.

Fifteen minutes later she finished that and began to draw a map in the notebook. The photos only showed the river nothing surrounding it or the best way traverse along it. Fang didn't have much talent for art, but she could make a decent map.

Fives minutes passed and she was finished. It wasn't her best work, but at least Lightning could come home faster rather than following the river back again.

Lightning appeared her bag slung on her back again. Fang handed her the photos and notebook.

"Wrote down all I could think of. Drew you a map no point in following the river back to the lake takes too long." Lightning nodded and zipped a pocket of her bag and slid everything in. She zipped it up again and looked at Fang. She felt tired, miserable and emotionally drained. All she wanted to do was curl up in bed and start the day over again. She quickly tried to suppress the feeling that all she wanted to do was curl up with Fang and sleep.

To Fang, she looked like some poor lost kitten that had been starved for three days and left out in the rain. Fang reached forward and drew Lightning into a hug hoping the woman wouldn't hit her for it. To her surprise, she felt Lightning relax and hug her back. Lightning let herself hug Fang and little longer, then stiffed and backed up. Fang almost laughed not bothering to take offense.

"Don't worry Light, I got Oerba covered. Get back soon okay?"

"You got it Fang."

…..

As always thanks for the reviews and follows.


	9. Chapter 9

Fang was glad to see the old place still standing.

She grinned as she jingled the keys, placing one in the lock. Lightning had scoffed as she tossed her the keys, calling them archaic. Fang had laughed and said that you don't mess with a classic, Light. She turned to the key and stepped inside, quickly shutting the door behind her. Everything here was mostly as they left it. New furniture had been added but that was it. She admired at how clean it was, that was something Vanille and she maybe had gotten around to once a month. She had noticed that Lightning's house while in midst of repairs somehow remained meticulously clean.

She grinned at the photograph of her and Vanille. Back when it was just the two of them against the world. Their friendship began from the orphanage, where Vanille was being picked on and surprisingly Fang, who could be a bit of a bully herself, stepped in and ended it. Vanille never left her side despite weeks of Fang trying to ditch her, until she gave in and they became friends.

With both of them being orphans at a young age, they were never really introduced to their clans and had very little exposure growing up. By the time they were 'kicked' out of the orphanage the Yuns, known for producing warriors, had already been decimated and very few Dias were left. One had a knack in healing and taught Vanille as much as she could before heading out into the war. It was how they got the house, they were watching it until she came back but she never did and no other Dias came along to make a claim. Technically that meant that the house was Vanille's because she was a Dia but Vanille never bothered with details like that.

She wandered around from room to room lost in her own thoughts when she heard the front door creak open.

"Fang?" Vanille's voice called out.

"Back here, Vanille!" Fang swiftly hurried to the front room.

"We ran into Snow on our way back from the hospital. I dropped Iskote off and noticed you weren't there so I decided to come find you." Vanille explained. "They want me to work at the hospital!"

"That's great, Vanille." Fang paused and grinned, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. "So you and Hope already did the deed?"

"As if that's any of your business." Vanille snapped. Fang laughed and raised her hands up in defense.

"Hey, if you had at least made the bed I might not have suspected."

"Don't be like that, Fang. Don't act like you didn't know." Vanille commented exasperated by Fang's behaviour.

"You do realize now that I have to kill him." Fang warned, grin growing even wider.

"You'll do no such thing. Besides Snow said they went out on patrol."

"Oh he told you about that, eh? Where did he go, I need to talk to him." Vanille instantly became curious.

"I'm surprised you didn't follow the patrol to go murder Hope." Fang ignored the barb and looked down at Vanille.

"Vanille, normally nothing would stop me from defending my little sister." She put up a hand to keep Vanille from interrupting. "Or to torture Hope and Sunshine but Lightning told me that they are sending people from Erewhon." Fang paused, debating whether this was the right way to say this. No, this was now or never and Vanille would be unhappy if someone other than Fang told her.

"And that includes Jihl Nabaat." Fang leaned out to wrap arms around Vanille as the girl froze in shock and horror. "Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you. Last time we met up it didn't go so well for her."

"What's going on?" Vanille managed to stammer out. "Jihl's alive?" Fang scoffed.

"Yeah, she must be one rigid bitch to survive that." Fang commented, remembering what happened.

"Why did they go on patrol if she's coming here?"

"Light went upriver to check out the area. Showed me some photographs the military had taken. They're interested in something downriver but we don't know what." Fang smiled. "But the best part Vanille, is that there is something Light didn't even realize." Vanille had recovered somewhat though she hadn't loosened her deathlike grip on Fang's waist.

"What's that?"

"They don't know that we woke up."

…..

Lightning had met Hope and the patrol at the edge of the city. She still had to force herself to function and instantly turned control of the patrol over to Hope, telling him not to screw it up. She'd fill him in later on what had happened, all that mattered now was getting this patrol over and done with as soon as possible. They had reached where the river met the lake and continued following it.

It was an easier patrol than most; they could be as conspicuous as they wanted. Titan hadn't been spotted in a long time and according to Fang's notes there were very few creatures that would bother them beside the river.

Hope had taken the lead; with the patrol practically following him step for step because they had never been this far away from base before. Lightning had missed Hope's safety brief that emphasized that pissing off something small could mean you pissed off something massive.

Lightning was following a from behind keeping her distance. She compared Fang's notes as they walked, adding her own as she noted things. At midday they had reached the river and had begun following its course. They had reached a forested area and it was hard going. Stay to close to the river and you risked falling in or getting stuck in the mud. Go to far and the underbrush was exceedingly thick. Lightning felt a pang of gratefulness that Fang had drawn a different way for them to get back.

The river itself had a slow current so falling in was more annoying than anything else. Two had taken the plunge so far. It was a wide river and looked deep. There didn't seem to be any wildlife hanging around, Lightning figured they were making too much noise but on occasion the soldiers exclaimed when they saw a fish jump.

As the day began to heat up, it only became wore. It was humid and miserable and while the trees provided some shade, there was not even a soft breeze to cool them off. The soldiers had ditched their top shirts, the men now in tight t-shirts and the woman in tank tops. Lightning had to wonder how tank tops possibly made it into the army clothing style and wondered if the girls had just bought matching ones to get away with it. It wasn't worth calling them on it, Lightning had shed her jacket an hour into the forest.

They traveled hard through out the day and with the days being longer, they only stopped when dusk began to set in. Hope found a clearing right next to the river and set about ordering the patrol to fetch wood and make camp.

After they all had eaten and the soldiers were hanging around trading stories, tossing the occasional log on the fire. It was still warm, Lightning was skeptical as to whether it would cool down enough over night but the fire was keeping the bugs away.

Lightning head to the river and found a stone. Earlier she had pulled a thread from a military issue shirt she never wore and tied it around the stone. Tucking it into a pocket she began to scale her way up the tree.

Hope had noticed Lightning leave and made his excuses as he followed after her. When he reached the river, he couldn't see where she had gone until he heard a splash and turned to see the noise. Up from the splash, in the branches was Lightning holding on to the end of the string.

"Lightning?" Hope called out.

"Wait." Was all the reply he got. She pulled up the stone and quickly made her way down the tree. She walked over to him and began inspecting the string. "Look at this. I wasn't even a third of the way out and this is how deep it was." Hope nodded absently, he knew he should be more interested but he did have more pressing concerns. He leaned against the tree and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"So." He dragged it out which made Lightning look up from her attempt at measuring the string and raise an eyebrow.

"I'm surprised Fang hasn't shown up yet." Hope commented trying to remain casual while his eyes hung on Lightning's face. Lightning smirked slightly, went back to her passive face and looking at the string.

"She will be when she finds out you spent the night with Vanille." Hope turned bright red and sputtered. Lightning let him squirm for a bit and then gestured loosely in Oerba's direction. "I asked her to stay behind. "

"As much as I value my life, Lightning, why did you ask her to stay?" Lightning gazed out at the river, her eyes cold.

"Jihl Nabaat." Hope nearly fell over as he jumped in surprise.

"What?"

"Amodar got called to Erewhon and Nabaat is being sent with a division here. Something's up Hope and I don't like it. I told Fang, it's why she stayed."

"Fang will kill her." Lightning gave Hope a grim smile.

"Nabaat won't be there yet. Unless Sazh flies back, he has one of the only planes big enough for all of them. And being in the back of a cargo plane and flying is miserable." Hope nodded, Lightning could see his mind working and felt pride, knowing the kind of man he would become.

"Dad says they don't like Nabaat. They tolerate her. Why would they send her here? She might be desperate to prove herself, but they won't care." He locked eyes with Lightning. "What do they know that we don't?" Hope swore Lightning's eyes sparkled though her face remained cold.

"I intend to ask her and if she doesn't respond, I'll let Fang ask her."

…

Fang was out patrolling in the plains, the opposite direction of Lightning. She had encouraged Vanille to stay with Serah, hopefully they would keep each other calm. Fang asked Snow if she could take one of the night shifts, she wanted to contribute. She knew it was useless to patrol like this, Vanille and her had made decent time to Oerba because of the chocobos and she doubted they would show up on those. No, Sazh had said that since his plane was here, they would be walking. Or marching. But it distracted her and made her feel better. Brix had already been to see Snow pleased that he already had people on the lookouts and others out scouting. Fang quickly scaled a small cliff and sat on top gazing outwards.

Despite all of the drama going on, Fang was still intrigued by Lightning's behaviour. Completely out of character in Fang's opinion and she wanted to figure out why. Lightning had let Fang hug her, Fang had expected her to shove her away and scoff, not accept it. Still, Fang did think of Lightning as her best friend, maybe Light would actually agree to that now? Lightning wasn't one to state things for some unknown reason. Fang didn't understand not being forward. Well, she did but she found it annoying, Fang's idea of a pick up line was. "Hey pretty, want to make out?" Vanille could hardly believe how many times that worked but it did. Fang chuckled to herself, she had said it to Light once as a joke and ended up running through the cliffs, bullets narrowly missing her.

Fang rocked her head from side to side, noting that the wind had picked up. Lightning had been living by herself for the past year. Had to be a little bit lonely, no wonder Serah had thrown a dog at her the first chance she got. Fang wanted to laugh, Lightning would only train a dog to be just like her and it wouldn't accomplish anything.

Lightning didn't seem to have any preferences. When they had been out scouting together, they talked about the strangest things mainly due to Fang's occasional nosiness. The only thing she had gotten out of Lightning was that she had dated. Dated who though, Fang wondered.

Naw, she couldn't see Lightning swinging that way. Actually when Fang thought about it she couldn't see Lightning swinging any way. She hated Snow, well that was more about Serah than anything else. Hope was like her own kid. No, Lightning was a bit of a mystery. Fang grinned. She had plans now that Lightning was gone and Snow and Sazh had already agreed to help.

She stood up and scrambled her way down, wincing as she gashed herself on a jagged rock, Vanille won't like this she thought to herself. She had only been out for a couple of hours but knew nothing would be happening soon. Better to go check on Vanille and Serah.

….

In the morning, Hope woke up everyone up early and they began their trudge through the forest. It was warm and they all knew it was going to be another miserably hot day of beating through the brush.

After a couple hours had passed and as they were nearing on midday, Lightning could feel her frustration growing. The soldiers had been constantly complaining about the pace. While they didn't say it outright, she could hear the passing remarks they made and noticed their ever slowing pace. She knew that her own impatience to get back was ringing through her mind and that the weather was exhausting but you didn't mess with Lieutenant Farron.

Hope gave in after another hour and called for a lunch break. Twenty minutes later, Lightning strode up towards him.

"Sergeant Esthiem. I need you to scout out this old trail and meet up with us later. I'll be leading the patrol until you return." Lightning almost smiled as she saw the soldiers visibly gulp and straighten. Slowing down because Esthiem was leading was fine; he was still one of their peers. Lieutenant Farron on the other hand was known for making recruits lives a living hell when you didn't follow orders. They had all graduated and were proper soldiers now but that could only make it worse.

Hope nodded and Lightning handed him one of the photographs.

"Be ready to move out in five." She called out and promptly turned away, motioning for Hope to follow.

Away from the soldiers, she pointed at the picture.

"Check it out, see what kind of state it's in. It may be completely overgrown by now, but if it's easier to walkthrough maybe we can take couple and save some time. It seems to run parallel to the river." Hope nodded, his face a looking a little displeased. Lightning almost smiled, the boy was still too easy to read.

"I know you can lead them, you can have them back when you catch up. Let me remind them what it is to be a part of GC." Hope nodded, the look disappearing. "Now go." Hope tucked the photo into a pocket and began to make his way.

"Esthiem, you'll have to run to catch up."

….

Vanille liked working at the hospital. She enjoyed that the orphanage was getting turned into a building that would still help people. It was a bit slow, there were very few patients and occasionally it just seemed like an old folks home.

The most patients they ever got were people in for household accidents or bite from creatures that hung around.

Vanille was folding bed sheets and storing them in a back room jumping as Serah barged in.

"Vanille, come quick!" Vanille dropped the bed sheets and sprinted after Serah. Downstairs in the old cafeteria was their ER waiting room and a man was standing there clutching his right arm, blood running down. A woman was standing by him, trying to calm him down pressing a towel onto the wounds. She looked relieved as Vanille and Serah approached.

"He says he got bitten by a snake. Looks like it was poisonous." Vanille instantly calmed, there were no instant death venom snakes around Oerba.

"What did it look like?" She asked, placing a hand on the man's shoulders. His breathing was rapid; he must have ran here Vanille guessed and his eyes looked panicked.

"Green and blue, I think. I didn't see it till it sprang at me." Vanille led him to a bed and got him to sit. Vanille pulled the towel away, the bleeding was slowing as she suspected and the puncture marks were visible with a purple tinge around them. She looked up at Serah.

"Don't you have medicines for this?" Vanille asked Serah, who still looked panicked.

"We didn't have snakes on Coccoon! Can you help him?" Vanille held back a sigh. She could of course, but gathering the ingredients could take a couple of hours and she would rather have Fang with her and she had gone off to who knows where this morning.

The poison would take a while to set in but would eventually begin to break down the tissues rendering the arm useless. She debated her best course of action.

"I can make a remedy for this but it will take me awhile." Vanille doubted they would have anything to even stop the poison from moving. She needed to learn these Cocoon medicines and find out if any would actually be useful or not on Gran Pulse. She turned back to her patient and placed her hand over the wound amd squeezed. _Slow._ She thought in her mind and felt the magic flow down her arm and into the wound. He yelled in pain and she released suddenly and placed the towel back over.

"Keep pressure on it." She turned to Serah and the woman. "I have to go find Fang. I'll need her help for this. Wrap it so it stays tight. I'll be back soon."

…

After stopping at her house for supplies, Vanille was hurrying down the road to Lightning's house. On her back was an old hide backpack that Fang had found in the house. She could hear the construction noises as she reached it and found Fang, Snow and some NORA people destroying the deck. Vanille didn't think it worth bothering to comment.

"Fang, I need your help!" She called out and Fang walked over.

"Thought you were at the hospital today." Fang questioned. She was a bit of a mess, dirt on her arms and legs, and chips of wood in her hair.

"I was, someone got bit by a Nkiru." Vanille explained and Fang winced.

"Nasty. Don't envy them."

"They don't have anything for this, so I need to go to the forest and collect things." Fang nodded.

"I'll get my lance."

After Fang running and fetching her lance and saying a few things to Snow, they had been in the forest an hour and had collected all Vanille needed. Fang was sitting cross-legged in front of a lit fire and coaxing it to remain alight on the wet ground. Vanille was sitting next to her, ripping apart plants and setting them down on a piece of hide she had brought with her.

"I thought we agreed not to use magic Vanille." Fang said conversationally as she tossed more tinder on the weak flames and was pleased as they began to catch.

"There's nothing magic about this." She responded instantly, refusing to look at Fang, though Fang noticed more force being added to tearing the plants into pieces.

"A Nkiru, Vanille? I remember when I got bit by one those when I was fifteen." Fang tapped her left calf with a piece of wood before placing it on the fire. "Poor bugger. If I had known he was there, I wouldn't have stepped on him. I also recall that you had to heal it instantly or I would lose my leg." Fang looked up from the fire grinning. "So what did ya do?" Vanille gave her an exasperated sigh.

"It didn't have to be healed instantly, don't make things up. I used a slow spell on this guy. They don't know Gran Pulse yet Fang and they don't know about Nkirus. No one will question it. I told them to keep pressure on the wound until I get back." Fang nodded in agreement and began to set up a small copper pot of water over the fire.

"I'll just make one batch for now, but I got enough plants so I can make more later. This stuff lasts years when bottled." Vanille began to add plant parts one by one into the slowly warming pot.

"Fang, when are we going to tell them? We can't keep it a secret forever."

"Give it time Vanille. It's not as if we can use Firaga and burn the whole town down." It's not that big a deal."

"You just think Lightning might rip your face off." Vanille commented.

"True." Fang paused and grinned. "But I have a feeling that we aren't the only ones. Remember where Cocoon people came from Vanille." Vanille looked confused and then realization flooded her face.

"You really think?" She asked, excited.

"Wouldn't surprise me." Fang replied nonchalantly. "Won't that be fun?" She added.

….

Lightning was jogging through the forest, jumping over bushes and avoiding the tangling roots of the trees. The soldiers were not faring so well. To make it even, Lightning had taken on one of the heaviest packs and she had to admit that she felt a little worn. After two hours. She had gotten to take several breaks, often waiting until she could see at least five soldiers in sight before taking off again.

The soldiers were gasping and red-faced but determined to keep up with her. She knew it wasn't safe to let them spread out as they slowed down or tripped but she needed to remind them who was in charge. Left alone, they would be eaten by monsters, they knew that and they were almost desperate in their attempts to keep up.

Lightning was surprised Hope hadn't returned, as amusing as this was she didn't want to completely drain out the patrol. She was afraid they would fall over from heat exhaustion; she had planned to slow down once Hope returned.

"Fifteen!" She called out as the first soldier caught up. She swung the pack off her back and set it on the ground. "Private Gathry, do a head count in five." She nodded and Lightning noticed she didn't sink to the ground until her back was turned. She jogged away from the river and two minutes later almost ran smack into a running Hope.

"Hope!" She yelped in surprise and sprang back. Hope stopped and stared at her.

"Lightning? What's wrong?" He could hardly believe he had managed to spook her unintentionally and that worried him.

"Nothing." She snapped and regretted it. Hope had managed to startle her. Maybe she had pushed herself a little too hard against the patrol. Hope didn't react to her coldness and she almost shivered in surprise. Maybe he was learning the wrong things from her because six months ago he would have flinched when she acted like this. She composed herself and Hope almost yelled at her when he saw her enter her emotionless state.

"Did you find anything?"

"Trail is still beaten down, couple of shrubs and things but you can still follow it easy. Must have been a well used trail." Lightning nodded and Hope continued. "Doesn't look like anyone has used it recently. I think it's still in good shape because animals use it. It looked like it was winding off in another direction so I decided to come find the patrol again."

"Good." Lightning responded. Hope decided asking her why she came looking for him was for a later time. "Let's get back."

As they reached the patrol, all 12 were there and most were on the ground. The ones who noticed their return attempted to scramble to their feet.

"Calm down." Lightning said. "We'll take another ten before we head on." The soldiers cheered softly in relief.

Ten minutes later Lightning swung the pack on again, wincing at the weight. She'd let herself get to slack over the past couple of months. Hope had been given control over the patrol again and he decided a slow walk would be the best way to start again.

As Lightning dropped behind to keep a wary eye, she couldn't help but wish to be home. Being stuck on a rush patrol that seemed completely useless wasn't helping anything and all she wanted to do was see Fang.

…..

"Unwrap it and then hold his arm steady for me." Vanille had a small vial of the anti-venom in her hand, uncorked and ready to go. If she hadn't done the slow spell, she would have injected it directly into the blood stream but she had enough to do this and leave enough left over if that was needed. The man looked pale and terrified but nothing else seemed wrong.

Serah nodded and unwrapped the wound. It began to bleed and Vanille wiped the blood away. She noticed that the blood hadn't congealed, a sign of the venom. She wiped again and then poured the anti-venom into each puncture mark. He winced every time she poured but to his credit stayed as still as he could and made no noise. She grabbed gauze, placed it over top of the wound and waited, hoping the anti-venom would work its way in and not just get sucked up by the gauze.

She put down the vial and placed her right hand down on the arm, and began to feel for the slow spell. It was still there, weak but holding on. She released the spell and resisted the temptation to haste the anti-venom.

After three minutes, she lifted off the gauze and smiled as she saw the blood was beginning to coagulate.

"Is it going to be okay? Will I still have my arm?" He asked nervously, watching the blood slowly drip down his arm.

"It looks like you'll make a full recovery but I think we will keep this on hand just in case. You should stay over night so we can make sure. Also you'll be weak for the next few days." The man nodded in relief and leaned back. Serah looked ecstatic and Vanille began wrapping the wound again in fresh bandages.

"You should have the changed for him every four hours or so. It should be fine, but it can't hurt to take precautions." Serah nodded, still looking excited. Vanille began to walk towards the entrance of the ER and Serah walked beside her.

"That was amazing." Vanille shrugged, though her voice remained friendly as always.

"Nothing really. Just an age old remedy that I've used before. I'm tired now though, I think I'll go back to Lightning's and have a nap."

"Before?" Serah questioned. Vanille grinned.

"Fang got bit once. I also used it on people after her but she was the first." Serah nodded.

"Are you sure you want to go to Lightning's? I called Snow earlier and he wouldn't tell me what he was up to but it sounded like they were destroying things." Vanille glanced up at the sky.

"It's getting late, they'll go home when they realize Fang won't feed them. Or is she does they'll find out Fang is a terrible cook."

"Okay, well you're welcome at my place if they don't quit." Serah said brightly. Vanille nodded.

"Thanks Serah."

"See you tomorrow?" Serah tentatively asked, worried that dealing with snake bites might have put Vanille off. Vanille noticed and gave Serah a quick hug.

"Definitely. I'll teach you how to make the anti-venom."

"Okay!" Serah replied brightly.

"See you later!" Vanille called over her shoulder as she headed out. She was going kick everyone out, make dinner and sleep for the next fifteen hours.

…

Fang wondered how many times this group had worked together. They often had gone in threes on their journey, but she couldn't think of how many times she'd been with Snow and Sazh. Usually Vanille was hanging off of her or Hope. Hope liked being a trio with Vanille and Lightning but they had all laughed, because that would simply been the two of them healing Lightning and watching her kick ass. And doing that took forever. Lightning and Fang had often gone in a pair to patrol leaving the four of them to set up camp.

Fang had requested this for a reason though. As much as she liked hanging out with the guys, she felt a bit of guilt at her ulterior motive. She knew she had to tell them about Jihl Nabaat. Snow would react like he normally did, get angry, stomp and yell around but Sazh was a completely different case.

Jihl had taken Vanille this was true, but she had taken Dajh. An innocent child purposely made into a l'cie to tug on his father's heartstrings. Completely heartless. There was going to be a line of people waiting to hit Jihl. Fang smirked. Lightning would have first shot. Fang shook her head. Soon, they could have a little bit of fun hanging out first.

This group could have been interesting she thought. Lightning did use her gunblade as a gun once in a while but Sazh used guns constantly. Using both herself and Snow as tanks and then let Sazh do some sharp shooting, now that would be fun.

Yesterday, would have been a good time to tell them but with NORA hanging around and a bunch of other people she didn't know, Fang didn't find it appropriate. By the time Vanille had kicked them all out, Sazh had just wanted to take Dajh home.

Snow was currently leading, Sazh walking beside him. Fang was hanging back still wondering the best way to broach the subject.

"Hey Fang, did Lightning ever say who was bringing the soldiers from Erewhon?" Fang's mouth almost dropped open only Snow could have the ability to answer questions like that. Fang straightened up and paused. Snow stared at her and both Sazh and he turned back to look at her.

"Fang?" Sazh asked, concern in his voice. Fang bit her lip and sighed.

"I'm sorry, I should have told you sooner. I just." Fang stopped dragging it out, feeling like an idiot. "It's bloody Jihl Nabaat." She ended coldly spitting the words out. She watched Snow's face turn into rage.

"WHAT!" He yelled and turned to a tree and punched it. Fang could hear the tree crack, it wasn't going to live long. She ran forward.

"Snow, don't. Save your energy for beating her up when she gets here." Snow was like an angry behemoth, stamping around and breathing heavily.

"Not until I get to her first." Sazh said quietly. His face was filled with an indescribable rage and it scared Fang. Mellow Sazh Katzroy, complaining he was too old for everything but putting a smile on anyways. Sazh had been aware Jihl was alive but the military hadn't been stupid enough to ever try to put them remotely near each other. Ignoring her existence had been much easier but now she was being thrown into his face. In a town that she should have no interest in.

Snow looked at Sazh and instantly began to calm. He had every right to be pissed but Sazh deserved it most of all. There was no excuse. Fang didn't know what to do and instantly went to her crutch of wishing Vanille was there.

"Sorry Sazh." She said softly placing a hand on his shoulder. "You too, big guy." She looked to Snow and gave him a weak smile. Sazh shook his head and let out a dark chuckle.

"Don't blame you Fang. You knew it would be a bad reaction. Thank you for bringing us out here." Snow nodded in agreement. Fang shrugged and looked to Snow.

"I don't know if Vanille told Serah or not."

"I'll tell her tonight. Or at least tell her I know so she doesn't walk around looking guilty." Fang smiled. Serah was such an open book even Snow could pick up on things.

"Well now that we all feel emotionally drained or miserable want to go kill something? I was thinking we." She punched Snow's arm affectionately. "Could be tanks and Sazh here could make some clean kills." Sazh nodded slowly, anger still on his face.

"Let's try it out." He attempted with enthusiasm though it failed. Fang took the lead.

"Let's hunt." She said simply and began to walk. Snow and Sazh followed, with Sazh's hands lingering near his gun handles, ready to shoot in a split second.

…..

"It actually looks good."

"Of course it does. We spent three days on it."

"Fang, where did you get the money for this?

"Money? Since when do we need money?"

"Since Cocoon crystallized. That's what they use here now. Did you steal it?"

"How could I have stolen all of this?!"

"Fang, I tried disbelief with you and it just doesn't work."

…..

The whole patrol was looking pretty beaten down. The heat hadn't let up one bit and trekking through the forest had only made it worse. All of them were covered in dirt and scratches from trees and bushes. They had slipped in mud and two soldiers were still half caked in it. But Lightning could smell something. Salt water.

She smiled because it reminded her of Bodhum and the sea that she Serah and Snow lived beside. They had reached it. Hope glanced back at her and she saw his smile too.

A breeze blew into their faces, everyone could now smell the salt and they pushed forward through the forest and suddenly the forest ended.

They had reached it and the patrol was in awe. The ocean. A white sandy beach stretched for miles in either direction. It was nothing they'd ever seen before. Cocoon had similar things, but nothing this massive.

The water was glittering and gorgeous, and Lightning could see nothing in the distance but sky and water. She dug in her hip bag and brought out Fang's notes. She hadn't looked at Fang's notes on the river meeting the ocean pictures. There was only one sentence.

"Where heaven touches the world."

She nudged Hope and pointed at the line. He read it and nodded in agreement, still in awe. The soldiers had dropped their packs and were slowing stepping towards the ocean, glancing occasionally at Lightning and Hope to see if they would be stopped. Lightning still a bit entranced, waved them away lazily.

"You have an hour. Then we pack up and move out." The soldiers cheered and began to strip off clothes running towards the ocean. She looked to Hope.

"You might as well join them." She gestured to his face and arms that were covered from being the first in the patrol. He nodded and ran down to join them.

Lightning headed further down the beach. She couldn't help but think of how overjoyed Fang would have been. She would have dragged Lightning to the water and thrown her in.

"Scared of a little water, Sunshine?" She could hear the words echo in her mind. Lightning began to strip down and stood in her bra and tight shorts staring at the ocean.

Then she ran. Straight in, not even pausing for a second to think about it. When the water reached midthigh, she dived, swam out and then floated on her back enjoying the buoyancy the salt gave her. She had missed the sea. Once in awhile she swam in the lake, usually in early morning so no one could catch her and occasionally when Serah dragged her there but there was something about this ocean.

She could only wonder at how big it was and how far it stretched. She lay there for what seemed like hours letting the ocean slowly push her back towards shore.

She felt the water move strangely around her and lifted herself up to see Hope beside her.

"Having fun?"

"Looks like you should be doing that." Lightning looked over to the other soldiers, who if they hadn't been in their shirts and underwear looked like any normal group of young adults that had gone to the beach. Splash fights, sandcastles and being buried in the sand seemed high on the agenda.

Hope just laughed.

"We have to bring everybody here. They would love it." Lightning nodded mutely in agreement and then grinned.

"Only if Fang's short cut is easier."

"Course, it will be. It's through the cliffs." Hope replied. Then he grinned. "You do realize it's been two hours don't you?"

"What!" Lightning couldn't believe it. Hope's smile grew wider.

"Come on Lightning, this patrol has been hell. Give them another hour and we'll go. The cliffs will take us no time at all and we can probably travel at night." Lightning doubted she that night travel would be a good idea but if Hope wanted to learn the hard way, maybe she would let him when they got closer to Oerba.

She lay back in the water. Hope was right. For the first time in her life, Lightning wanted to go on a beach trip.

….

Sazh had found a house. It had only taken five days of being here but he had done it. Snow had shown him an endless amount of houses in between both of them helping Fang but hadn't known that this one was free. It was nearby to Snow and Serah's which he liked but it also had a ton of yard space. Perfect for a growing boy and his chocobo. He had left Dajh with Serah and was walking over to fetch him.

He walked into the yard and smiled as the puppy came barreling at him.

"Hey Blue!" He greeted the dog and then glanced around for Serah. He could never remember what that dog's actual name was and Snow kept calling her Blue. He scratched behind the dog's ears and headed up the stairs onto the porch. Blue followed barking excitedly. He knocked on the door and began to pet the dog, waiting.

"Come in!" He could hear Snow's voice muffled through the door. Sazh opened the door and walked in down the hallway to the kitchen. Blue ran ahead.

"There you are!" Serah leaned down to pet the dog while Dajh ran up to Sazh and hugged him.

"Daddy!"

"Hey champ! Ready to go see our new house?" Sazh asked as Dajh released him.

"You found one?" Dajh asked, excited.

"Yep, you even get to pick from two rooms!" Sazh replied, a smile on his face. "Where's Snow?"

"Looking over maps in the dining room. Fang was writing all over them this morning." Sazh nodded and walked through the doorway into the dining room.

It was a bright pretty room. Serah had brought in fresh flowers and big windows lit the room. A long dark table stood in the center with high backed chairs around it. It was covered in papers and Snow was sitting at the end of the table, his nose almost touching a map spread out on the table.

"Hey man." Sazh greeted. Snow looked up.

"I thought it might be you. What'd you think of the house?"

"It's the one."

"Sorry, I didn't come across it sooner."

"Naw, this way I got to see more of the town." Sazh stopped as he felt his pocket began to buzz. He pulled out his work issued phone that began to ring.

"Who is this?" He said aloud as Snow's face turned into a look of interest. Sazh clicked the talk button.

"Hello?"

"Katzroy. We need to you to fly back to Erewhon now. You and the plane are needed for a mission urgently." Snow watched Sazh's face go from pleasant to extremely annoyed.

"This is my vacation!" Sazh was stunned. "And." The speaker cut in.

"You will be compensated." Click. The phone line went dead. Sazh hung up and looked to Snow.

"They want me to make a flight back to Erewhon." Sazh was grinning evilly. Snow was confused.

"So?" Snow's big blonde eyebrows furrowed together.

"But they didn't let me get the chance to tell them that my plane was damaged." Sazh smiled his pearly whites lighting up his face.

"When was your plane damaged?" Snow asked in wonder.

"Oh about five minutes ago." Snow remained silent for a second and he thought about it and then let out a blaring laugh as he understood. He stood up and punched his left open palm.

"We have a plane to bust."

…..

Thankfully, going through the cliffs had been a much easier route to take than through the forest. It was only hot for a part of the day then the cliffs provided shade from the sun. There was less vegetation to slash through and for that they were all grateful.

Lightning was pleased, they were making fantastic time and would be back hopefully before nightfall. They had run into a couple of groups of triffids, but the soldiers had dealt with them easily.

They were in an open area surrounded by cliffs, Lightning could tell that the plains were close by the amount of grass that slowly appeared around the random boulders. The patrol was spread out and Lightning wasn't too worried, they were close to home. The sun was still up in the sky a few hours before darkness.

"Hey now, what are you?" Private Gathry was smiling at what look like a walnut with legs. It chirped at her and Hope jogged towards her trying to remain calm. As he reached her, he reached out to grab a shoulder.

"Gathry, back up. Now." He ordered.

"What? Why?" She turned and asked. As she turned the microchu leapt at her. Hope swung out his boomerang and knocked it down. It began to bawl.

"That's why." He grabbed her arm and began to pull her away.

"We can take it." Lightning had caught up with the rest of the patrol and walked over to the interaction. Then she spotted them. Three other microchus were prancing around and had noticed the bawling one and began to make noises. Lightning froze for a second and then instinct kicked in.

"Run!" She bellowed at them and began to run to Hope. Hope glanced back and pushed Gathry to move. Lightning headed down the slope and jumped onto a higher flat section to check that they were running. Gathry had already started running and the rest followed her.

Boom.

"Fuck." Lightning said as an ochu appeared. Hope jumped up beside her.

"That's everyone. Light, I don't think we can beat this."

"No, but we can outrun it if we distract it." Lightning picked up a rock and threw it, high above the ochu's head so it hit the cliff behind and bounced back onto it. "Come on, turn around." The ochu paused but kept coming towards them. Lightning picked up another rock and noticed Hope aiming his boomerang.

He let it go flying, high above the ochu's head towards a pile of rocks. It skimmed past them, lightly scraping them. It was enough, the rocks fell and smashed into the ground making the ochu pause and look.

"Run." Was all Hope said. Lightning didn't move until Hope had caught his boomerang. Then they turned tail and took off after the patrol. As they caught up, they glanced behind them and breathed a sigh of relief. Lightning slowed as they reached a steep slope fulled of jagged rocks and came to a stop, holding out her arms to make the patrol stop.

Gathry had too much speed and went flying down the hill. Straight into the adamantoise that was feeding down there. Lightning saw her struggle to stop, lose her footing and continue rolling until she hit the adamantoise's foot. It roared. Lightning almost sighed.

"Keep running! We can't go back, head for the forest." The patrol took off again and Lightning began to slide down the slope, heading for Gathry who looked a little beaten from her fall and now terrified. Hope threw his boomerang hoping to distract it.

"Get away!" Lightning yelled at her and Gathry started to limp towards her. Lightning reached her, glancing at the adamantoise that was bellowing from Hope's boomerang hits to the head. "Come on, before it jumps!" Lightning swung out her gunblade clicking it into gun mode and fired off a few rounds aiming for the eyes. Gathry passed her and kept going, trying to go as quickly as possible.

Lightning heard her cry out and saw that she had fallen, but was still trying to get up. As Lightning turned away, the adamantoise kicked out its foot and sent Lightning flying into the cliff wall.

"LIGHTNING!"

….

Fang was crouched, hidden behind the bush. She had killed a triffid and spread its blood on the ground. Hoping that what she wanted would show up and take the bait, Fang waited.

There it was. A gorgonopsid. Excellent. It sniffed at the bait and paused, looking around.

"Come on, eat it you stupid thing." Fang barely breathed out the words. The gorgonospid glanced around again and then tore into the triffid. "Yes."

Fang sprang out from the bush, lifting her lance high in the air as she curved it into an arc and down into the side of the beast's neck. It roared in pain and she twisted the lance, digging it in further as it began to scramble and pull away. Blood spurted around the lance and onto her face and she pulled it out and leapt back as it jumped to bite her. She danced away, still facing it trying to decide where to strike next. She knew it would die soon from the lance stab but it wasn't a nice way to die and Fang couldn't stand doing that.

She darted forward and went to try and slice the underside of its neck. She caught it but got her arm raked with claws. "Hell!" She yelped and scrambled to get away.

She tried to stay focused but felt annoyed at herself for the rookie mistake. The beast was visibly slowing down now and she slowed too. Then it began to turn around.

"Oh no you don't!" Fang yelled, knowing it had decided to run. She slashed at its hind leg, crippling it in one smooth motion. The leg buckled and the beast fell onto its side. Fang took the opportunity to make a stab for the heart.

She jumped up and holding both hands on the lance, drove it down, hearing the cracking of ribs as the beast stilled. She pulled the lance out with a bit of effort and sighed. She looked at the triple gashes on her right forearm. It had ruined her black arm covering but Vanille might be able to make her more.

"Great. Vanille will like this." She muttered. She paused as she heard the bellows. "Huh, wonder what's pissed them off?" She passed it off. Those oversized sun baked lizards complained about everything. She spun the arm garment around so the unsliced side now covered the marks. She dropped the arm and winced. Okay, so worse than she thought. "Even better." She ignored the blood that dripped down through the cloth, if she finished quickly enough it would be fine.

She pulled out a knife that was hanging from her belt and knelt down.

"LIGHTNING!" She glanced up. She knew that squeaky yet slowly deepening voice. Hope. Then she heard the Admantoise's roar.

"Fuck." She said simply, grabbed her lance and began to run.

…

As Fang reached the edge of the forest, she scanned the area and noticed Hope was up on top of a hill throwing his boomerang at the adamantoise. She wondered why he was wasting time doing that when he could be running. She looked down by the adamantoise that's back was facing to her and felt her heart stop as she saw Lightning in a crumpled heap. Another soldier was trying to crawl towards her.

Fang didn't hesitate and ran forward. She muttered a strength spell and cast it on herself. The adamantoise was ignoring Hope's boomerang and looked intent on stomping on the two females.

As Fang reached the hind leg, she brought the lance up and slashed down. Her strength spell allowed her to rip open the tough hide. As she slashed she swung the lance to the other blade and dug in and turned. The admanatoise roared and shook the leg. Fang held onto her lance, and as it worked it's way out, she was thrown backwards. She rolled with the force, minimizing her impact. Hope made his way down the slope towards Lightning.

Good enough. It could still stand on the leg but not enough to rear up and smash its front legs down. Fang picked herself up and sprinted towards Lightning.

"Hope!" She called out. "Get the soldier!" She saw Hope nod and turn his direction to Gathry. Fang reached Lightning, who had blood on her foreheard. She swung her lance onto her back and picked up Lightning, trying to keep her head form moving by leaning it against her shoulder. She hoped Lightning hadn't hurt her neck; this was only going to make it worse. She began to head for the forest, grateful she had cast the strength spell and Lightning hardly weighed anything at all.

Hope was helping Gathry walk towards the forest they were close. The adamantoise lifted a foot up and slammed it to the ground. Fang felt the ground shake and throw her up in the air. As she fell she twisted trying not to land on Lightning and trying not to land on her lance. She managed it by managing to fall onto her hip and rolling to her back but as she hit the ground, her hip made a cracking noise and then Lightning's weight squished her. Fang felt the breath go out of her and gasped.

"Owww, fuck." Fang tried to calm down and let herself breathe. She managed a few short gasps and forced herself up nearly falling over. She scrambled to pick up Lightning again, grabbing her by the shoulders and yanking her up. She caught her legs and started to move again. She glanced at the adamantoise. Looking like it was unwilling to walk and was only slamming the ground in a desperate attempt at revenge. Fang hurtled herself into the forest.

A few yards in she slowed, knowing that if the adamantoise slammed the ground even with both feet the trees would minimize the impact. It was still bellowing and roaring in the distance.

Fang leaned against a tree and slowly slid down, settling Lightning in her lap.

"I don't know if I want to know how you managed that." Fang commented to the unconscious Lightning. She used her left arm to keep Lightning sitting upright and used her right to prod along Lightning's neck.

"I'm no doctor, but it seems you managed to at least keep from breaking your neck."

"Fang!? Fang?" She could hear Hope calling out.

"Here Hope!" She could hear bushes rustling and branches being snapped as he appeared.

"Fang!" He greeted. He knelt down beside them. "Are you okay?" Fang gave him a weak grin.

"No, but I think I'll live. As for this one, I think she might have a couple of things broken. We'll have to get Vanille to check her out." Hope nodded his face worried. Fang leaned out and slapped her hand down on the top of his shoulder.

"It's okay Hope. I don't think it'll be anything long term. You did good, distracting that thing. It was super pissed at you. Gave me the chance to attack." Fang gently eased Lightning off of her and stood up.

"Did you find the patrol?"

"Yeah, all but two. I sent two others to go ahead and tell Oerba. Hopefully they'll meet us soon." Fang nodded and leaned down to pick up Lightning again. She felt gratefulness for the strength spell that hadn't worn off or else she knew she would be exactly like Lightning.

Hope led them back to the patrol, which all gave her strange looks. Fang ignored them, she wasn't in the mood to tease or make friends. They trudged their way through the forest. Fang had been a fair ways in; it would take them at least an hour to get out.

Suddenly she felt Lightning stir in her arms.

"Fang?" Lightning's eyes open to a slit, Fang could see they were a bit blurry and unfocused.

"Hey there Sunshine." If Lightning had had the energy, she might have rolled her eyes.

"Where?"

"Hope's fine. The patrol is fine. You're not." Fang said simply and quietly, not mentioning she wasn't in too great shape herself.

"Put." Lightning tried to attempt a command. Fang almost laughed.

"Nope. Just go back to sleep Light." Lightning opened her mouth to protest and felt the tiredness overtake her. Her eyes closed and she resumed her dead body like state.

As the first stars started to appear in the sky, they could see lights from vehicles and velocycles at the edge of the forest. They made their way out and the soldier rushed towards them. Fang paused in the bright lights and looked around trying to see if anyone she found useful was there. She kept walking, struggling along, as Lightning's weight grew heavier and heavier.

"Fang!" She could see Snow come barreling up towards her.

"Hey big guy." She greeted weakly. Snow took Lightning and Fang nearly collapsed in relief.

"Why are you here?"

"I was out hunting and heard the noise. Adamantoise. Snow, we gotta go see Vanille." Snow nodded, realizing it wasn't the time for questions.

"Hope?" He couldn't help but ask.

"Fine. Everyone else but one is fine. Captain Sunshine here wasn't so lucky."

….

As they reached the house Vanille rushed out.

"Serah just called me! What happened? Bring her inside quickly." They made their way into the house. "There down on the couch. That should be fine." Fang collapsed into an armchair. Vanille noticed but turned to Snow.

"You should go find Hope. Find out what happened. I can deal with these two." Snow paused and then nodded.

"Okay. I'll be back soon." Vanille waved him away, turning to Lightning. She instantly began feeling for broken bones. They heard the door slam shut as Snow left.

"Should I be dealing with you first?"

"Naw, I'm fine." Vanille's eyes rolled and she resumed her inspection. Nothing that she couldn't fix or help along.

"Be right back." She ran upstairs, glad that Serah had let her take supplies from the hospital. As she came back down, Fang had slipped down to the floor and was unconscious.

"Grand." Vanille muttered and set to work.

….

Fang woke up in a bed. Which was surprising because she clearly remembered sliding off the chair and on to the nice comfy floor. She wondered how Vanille managed to get her up here. She did her usual roll to the floor and winced as the bang echoed throughout the room.

Her hip hurt, she had wondered if she did a number on that but had ignored it while carrying Lightning. She was in her black shorts and top and couldn't see her sari any where in sight. Iskote came rushing in to greet her.

"Hey buddy." She said softly while moving around checking on the motion of her joints. Her head didn't hurt and her arm was wrapped tightly in gauze. Her hip was painful but she was able to move it. She could feel a couple of gashes but her ribs seemed bruised. Better than she thought. Vanille must have been exhausted.

Fang reached out and roughly shook the dog's head around. She glanced up as she saw feet in the doorway.

Lightning, in a tank top and shorts was leaning against the doorframe. She had bandages on her arms and one taped to her forehead. She had her arms crossed though she didn't look angry.

"Hey." Lightning greeted. Fang stretched slowly and worked her way up off the floor.

"Morning." Fang was pleased to see Lighting up and about.

Lightning was not happy to see Fang looking like she did. She was leaning on her left side, which meant her right side was hurt that was confirmed by the edges of bandages on the top of her hip. Shallow breathing probably meant her ribs were bruised like Lightning's. She had her right forearm bandaged but her eyes were clear and steady.

"Where did you get that collar from?" Lightning asked outright. Iskote was now sporting a black braided leather collar.

"Made it. Serah got a tag for it." Fang answered.

"You made it?' Lightning was genuinely surprised and Fang almost laughed.

"Leatherworking is a hobby of mine. I'm not brilliant at it, but he needed a collar. My old tools were in the closet at the house."

"Thanks. It's nice." Lightning said quietly. Fang shrugged and Lightning suddenly looked up meeting Fang's eyes. "No really, thanks. Hope called me this morning. He said if you hadn't shown up." Fang was beginning to feel awkward and cut in.

"Light, I would have done it for anybody. You're my friend and you would have done the same for me." Lightning nodded, deciding against asking about other things Hope had told her. Being carried by Fang she vaguely remembered, how Fang refused to let any of the soldiers help. Fang broke eye contact and went over to dresser opening random drawers. She found one with clothes that looked more her style and pulled out a green v-neck and slipped it on.

"I smell coffee." Lightning said simply and walked out. Fang shrugged and followed her downstairs.

Serah and Vanille were downstairs, eating toast and drinking coffee.

"Fang!" Vanille jumped up and hugged her. Fang winced.

"Ugh, Vanille. Hurt."

"What did you expect? I'm surprised your hip wasn't in pieces." Vanille's glare suggested to Fang that it might have been similar to that.

"How'd you get us upstairs?"

"Snow. Serah helped me with you two, she showed up five minutes after he left. We called him after we patched you up, sleeping on the floor wasn't going to help either of you." Vanille turned over to Lightning, who was filling up two mugs of coffee. "How's your head Lightning?"

"Hurts, but not too bad." Lightning walked over and handed Fang a mug of coffee and went to sit beside Serah. Vanille turned back on Fang.

"How did you do this?" She poked at Fang's arm, who sidled away. "Hope said he didn't see anything.

"Ow, it's from the gorgonospid I was hunting." Fang looked annoyed. "Aw man, something will have gotten a hold of that carcass." Vanille opened her mouth to scold when Lightning cut in.

"What happened to my deck?" She was staring out the winder, her jaw dropped. Fang grinned brilliantly and ran into the empty dining room where the sliding door for the deck was. Lightning stood up slowly looking questionably at Serah and Vanille. Serah smiled.

"I had nothing to do with this." She said asLightning rolled her eyes and followed Fang out.

The deck was large and wide, nothing too fancy but nice looking nonetheless. Fang had used a light coloured wood and stained it slightly darker. There was bench seating built in on one side but the rest was open railing looking out into Gran Pulse. Fang was grinning into her coffee, leaning against the railing.

"Where on earth did you get lumber for this?" Lightning asked, as Fang sipped her coffee trying to stay cool. Of course that would be Lightning's first question.

"Traded for it." Fang replied nonchalantly.

"What do you mean trade?" Lightning's eyebrow shot up and her voice turned cold. Fang laughed refusing to give Lightning any ground to stand on.

"Seem to find myself currently unemployed so I went hunting. Food is a hot commodity right now. Wandered into town with it and was heading to the butcher. Some guy stopped me and asked where I had gotten it and if I would sell it. He didn't care much about the meat, seemed to want the hide. So I skinned it and he said if I got him two more he would have all I needed delivered right here."

Fang brandished her arms out. "And viola, finished deck!" Lightning rolled her eyes, it would be just like Fang to sling a carcass over her shoulders and walk into town.

"Snow and a couple of guys helped. I took the rest of it to the butcher and he did all the hard work for free because I let him keep my other two kills when I brought them later."

Lightning's mind reeled and she let go of her questions. Fang had built her a deck.

"I'm impressed." Lightning said softly in a cool quiet voice. She was stunned that Fang had gone to all this effort on some side comment she had made. Could this mean that Fang liked her? Fang was her best friend, but wasn't this a little much for friendship? Lightning had no idea, she had little time for friends in her life before and now, she was still unsure. Fang paused her excitement and cocked her head at her.

"Really?" She could hardly believe she had gotten that out of Lightning.

Lightning nodded unsure of what else to say. She wanted to express her thanks, but couldn't come up with anything that did not sound completely moronic. She sipped at her coffee, admiring the deck. She glanced at Fang, that confidence she so envied and admired seemed to ooze from Fang's every pore.

"I know you could have done this Light. But I wanted to thank you for letting me and Vanille stay here." Fang explained.

"Most people get a bottle of alcohol or a card to give as a thank you. Not build a deck." Lightning supplied. Fang scoffed.

"I think any card I that I got you, you would use to slit my throat in my sleep." Fang commented and then looked a bit guilty. "There is bad news though."

"What?' Lightning frowned and her eyes narrowed. Fang placed her mug on the ground and back up slightly until she was against the railing.

"I promised Snow he could have a party." She mumbled.

"What." Cold and vicious, Fang expected this reaction. Gratitude dropped off Lightning's face like rainwater replaced with the ever-unchanging emotionless state.

"To celebrate your return?" Fang said meekly and held up an open palm gesturing to the deck. "A bunch of NORA people helped."

"Fine whatever. When?" Lightning formed it in a question it sounded more like a demand. Fang gave up on trying to be nice and a cocky grin returned to her face. So she built a deck and wanted to have a party to thank the people who had helped. There wasn't really anything wrong with that. But she knew that the next part was going to get her in trouble. She smiled at Lightning.

"Tonight." She said strongly.

Lightning leaned down and placed her coffee mug gently down. She looked completely calm and Fang felt her heart begin to pound.

"You have five seconds to run, Fang." Ice blue eyes met green and then were broken as Fang turned. Fang vaulted over the railing and took off.

"Five." Lightning stated and hurtled herself after Fang.

…..

Lightning was walking towards the base. She wanted to find Hope and meet up with Brix. Her head was still hurting but it was slowly fading away, she knew chasing after Fang probably hadn't helped at all.

After yanking Fang down from a tree, they had been sparring until Vanille came charging out of the house screaming at them. Lightning couldn't blame her, half of their bandages had fallen off and Fang was limping. After fifteen minutes of reapplying bandages and scolding, Serah had taken Vanille off to the hospital to restock and Fang had gone with them in hopes of running into Snow.

The party was still happening. Serah had put her foot down. Lightning grinned; Fang didn't realize that Serah could be the scarier one out of the two of them.

Lightning nodded to the guard at the gate; for once it wasn't a rookie. She headed towards the tin shack.

"Lightning!" Hope called out and walked towards her meeting her at the door.

"Sergeant Esthiem." She responded. He smiled.

"Lieutenant." He saluted and Lightning raised an eyebrow. "You're in charge now."

"Where's Brix?"

"At her desk. I already made the report."

"Good. Come along anyways." Hope nodded and followed. Lightning made her way through the winding dark halls and reached Brix's desk.

"Oh good. You're here. Nice to know you lived." Brix looked up from paperwork looking a bit exasperated. Lightning almost shrugged. Hope stayed in the background, Lightning and Brix were known for verbal battles. "Your turn now. I want to go back to my regular job. I hate being at a desk." Brix stretched her arms out across the desk and collapsed onto it.

"You are more than welcome to go train some new recruits to do paperwork." Lightning quipped back. Lightning's eyes flickered as she remembered something. "We really have to do a creatures 101 class. They don't know what they shouldn't touch." Brix laughed and dragged herself up.

She was a tall lithe woman and Lightning always wondered why she was in GC because she seemed to hate almost every aspect of it. She kept her black straight hair short it curled just below her jaw line and she had friendly brown eyes that were deceiving. Her pale skin and librarian glasses only added to the idea of her not being a soldier. Brix was one of the few soldiers that had sought out Lightning and asked her to teach her about the area. Lightning had eventually given in but only ten soldiers on base were aware of the different types of creatures. Brix had even convinced Lightning to take her out to see them and they fought a few monsters after Brix initiated it by stabbing at them with her twin long swords.

"You would be the best one for that." Brix responded casually, but a glint of humour glimmered in her eyes.

"No way. I'm not signing myself up for that torture." Lightning spat back. "You were bad enough." Brix grinned; they had had some close calls.

"Hope told me everything, so I assume you came here to get me out of this hell hole?" Brix sounded hopeful.

"No, I want." Lightning started, but Brix cut her off.

"You want to know if there's been any news. Sorry, buttercup but there hasn't been." Lightning flinched at the moniker of buttercup; she made a mental note not to let Fang and Brix meet. "Though Snow did mention something about Sazh's plane being broken and in need of repair." Brix stared down at Lightning, using her height to her advantage.

"Seriously, I've been here for a week. I'm taking today off. Do your paperwork and hold down the fort for a couple of hours."

"I hate you." Brix shrugged and picked up her swords.

"I'll see you at the party later." She called over her shoulder. Brix punched Hope playfully on the way out and Hope was thankful he hadn't been drawn in. Hope turned to look at Lightning who was pissed.

"I'm going to kill Snow."

….

All in all it wasn't a terrible party. Except that it was at her house. Serah and Vanille had shown up with a bunch of food and Snow and Gadot had shown up with unworldly amounts of alcohol. Someone had fixed her speakers and her living room was now a dance floor. She hoped her armchairs would survive; they were ugly as hell but comfortable.

It was a warm night, so people were everywhere, outside and inside wandering around. She had blocked the upstairs with chairs and was hoping it would be a suitable deterrent. She was pretty sure Fang had staked herself out by the stairs to laugh at the first sucker who brought a ton of chairs down upon himself.

She was on the deck with Sazh, who was drinking a beer and watching Dajh play with the dogs in the yard. Blue, Iskote and Gadot's dog were giving him a run for his money.

"So they wanted you to go pick them up? They must have realized how long it would take to walk." Lightning commented and Sazh nodded.

"After we had looked." He made quotations with his fingers. "At the plane, I called back and told them it must have snapped on the landing. They're sending River with the parts. I called her on my own phone, she's being sent alone which is good."

"She can give us an update on how close they are." Sazh nodded.

"Lightning, for all your dead body like state, you know how to throw a party." Brix appeared and managed to make her way over to them.

"This is all Snow. He knows everybody." Lightning glanced at Sazh, who seemed amused. Brix threw an arm around Lightning and nearly fell into her. Lightning recoiled slightly and stood perfectly still.

"He did good. He's had people out patrolling since day one. Even managed to get some to go tonight." She knocked back her almost empty beer. "And who is this fine man?"

"Sazh Katzroy, pilot." Brix looked up blearily at him.

"Oh yeah, supply man!" Sazh winced and lightning rolled her eyes still trapped by Brix's arm.

"Supply man?" He asked.

"It's what the troops call you. I think they had a whole theme song about it." Brix shrugged.

"Excuse me ladies, I think I'm going to go check this out. Lightning, will you watch Dajh?" Lightning nodded and Sazh went into the house. Brix grinned.

"Hope's the only one here who knows it." She said evilly. "Hope made up verses three and four." She looked over to Lightning, who looked miserable. "That man is smoking."

"Thank you for the creepy observation." Brix let go of Lightning and sat down. Lightning, thankful Brix had let go, stayed standing.

"Where's your Yun friend? I want to meet her." Lightning glanced at the house.

"Waiting for something. I imagine she'll be out soon with an angry Vanille on her heels."

"Beer me!" Brix ordered and Lightning walked over and tossed her a beer from the cooler. Oerba had limited supplies; she could scarcely believe how many coolers full of beer were in her house right now.

Fang was waiting for someone to hit the chairs or attempt to climb over them. Vanille was less than pleased but not for that reason. Fang swigged at her beer while Vanille tried to tell her off.

"Fang, I'm telling Serah tomorrow. After healing you and Lightning, I was exhausted and she saw your hip. It wasn't normal looking."

"Yeah, yeah." Fang had her eyes glued on the bottom of the stairs. 'That still hurts by the way."

"Fang, I'm serious. You need to tell Lightning, she'll figure it out and be pissed."

"She'll be pissed any ways."

"That's unfair. If you explained it to her, maybe she wouldn't be." Fang bit back a laugh. She wouldn't be remotely surprised if Lightning was aware already. Vanille was under estimating soldier girl.

"Wouldn't be what?" Hope appeared at Vanille's side. Fang tilted the bottle back again, eyes unmoving.

"Going to tell lover boy?" Her eyes slowly lowered and fixed on Hope's face. "You. Dead meat." Fang warned as she slid a finger slowly along her throat and lifted her beer to take a drink. Hope gulped visibly and Vanille smacked Fang's arm. Hope turned to Vanille, though he kept his eyes on Fang.

"Tell me what?" He asked, worried now. Vanille shook her head in annoyance. Sometimes Fang was just as bad as Lightning when it came to deflecting.

"Seriously Fang." Vanille warned and Fang shrugged.

"Tomorrow Vanille. Now go away and make out or something. I'm busy." Fang's tone was dismissive, nothing more would be said on the subject. Vanille rolled her eyes and grabbed Hope, muttering to herself and cursing Fang.

Fang watched them walk away and sighed. Vanille was right and she knew that telling Lightning was the best thing to do. Fang had to admit she wouldn't be surprised if Lightning had already noticed something fishy was up. But Lightning hadn't seemed the same since they had gotten back from crystallization and Fang couldn't figure out why. She didn't know whether she wanted to press the subject or not, she had a feeling Lightning would only shut her out.

She nodded to Yuj and Maqui as they passed and attempted to go upstairs. She let out a loud whoop as they came crashing down, congratulating them on their style. Vanille came rushing back in to help and Fang decided that making herself scarce was the best course of action as Lebreau gave her a death stare for cheering. She sprinted for the sliding door and nearly tripped over Brix out on the deck.

"Whoa, sorry about that." She looked to Lightning, whose eyebrow was raised, questioning.

"Yuj and Maqui. Hilarious." Lightning scowled. "They're fine. Lebreau wasn't pleased with my enthusiasm though."

"I was hoping for Snow." Lightning admitted and Fang smirked.

"Would have been a bigger bang than that." Lightning nodded in agreement and Brix stood up.

"Lieutenant Vivian Brix. Happy to finally meet you." She stuck out a hand and Fang shook it.

"Oerba Yun Fang. Can't say I've been told about you." Fang commented as she sized up Brix. Brix laughed.

"Not much to tell. Been in GC my whole life, met up with Amodar a few months before he headed out here. Decided to go with him, he's a decent commander."

"Yes because he never makes you do any work." Lightning inserted.

"Aw Lightning, one day you can have a desk job just like mine." Brix taunted.

"Why do you even have a desk?" Lightning spat back and Fang smiled. Nice to know she wasn't the only one who enjoyed getting a rise out of Sunshine.

"So you work with Sunshine?" Fang asked and Brix's face filled with delight as she heard the nickname. Lightning groaned. She knew these two would team up and make her life hell.

"Not really. I deal with defense and tactics, Lightning here trains up the recruits so they're half decent. We work together on occasion, but usually there's no need."

"Until now." Lightning added in darkly. Brix nodded and seemed to sober up a bit.

"Fang, I also wanted to meet you because you know the terrain the best. I know you haven't been here in a long time, but the outlay of the city is still the same. I could use your help." Fang nodded.

"Sure. We still don't know what's happening, do we?" No one seemed to have an answer to this. Brix looked grim.

"No communication whatsoever. I have no idea. We know it.." She stopped and lifted up her beer bottle. "This isn't the place. Come to the base tomorrow and I'll fill you in on what I know. Lightning can bring you."

"You can't give me orders, Brix. Amodar left me in charge."

"What are you, five? Just do it, buttercup." Brix clinked her bottle against Fang's. "Later Yun." She swaggered down off the deck and towards Dajh. Fang looked confused.

"She seems to like Sazh. After he chases Hope around for the song, he might remember he has a son." Fang nodded. Lightning felt a twinge of jealousy as Fang watched Brix.

"Well it may all be going to hell Light, but at least we're all back together." Fang leaned on the railing and Lightning stood beside her as they listened to Vanille sing the supply man song and Hope ran for his life as Sazh pulled out his pistols.

….

Fang let out a yell as she realized she was floating a foot above the bed. Her blanket slid off leaving her in her black shorts and top. Why was it every time she woke up a new event was happening?

"Vanille! You get your ass in here and fix this!" Vanille stuck her head in the door as Fang tried in vain to swing herself around.

"I have to go to work now. Bye Fang!" Fang's eyes widened in panic and she swung an arm out in a vain attempt to get at Vanille.

"Vanille, it'll take me an hour to get down! You are not leaving me here, missy!" Vanille giggled and waved. "This is not what we discussed!" Fang yelled.

"See you later!" She skipped from the room and down the stairs. Fang could hear her muffled goodbye to Lightning, and could hardly make out Lightning's murmured response.

Fang sighed as she floated and tried to swing her legs downward. No such luck, Vanille had improved the spell. She made a mental note to torture the girl later, but honestly she was quite impressed that Vanille had managed this. She really shouldn't have drank last night, it always dulled her senses. She wondered how long she had been sleep floating. Knowing Vanille, probably quite awhile.

Fang glanced at the clock. It was seven, too early for this. Her head wasn't ounding but she was miserably tired and achy.

This was Vanille's way of making her talk to Lightning. She probably went to take Hope breakfast as his description of the barrack food disgusted Vanille. She sighed again and buried her face in her hands. This was not the way to tell Lightning anything.

She dragged her hands off her face and let out a deep breath. Time to deal with this.

"Let's see if this does anything." Fang began to flail around, attempting to swim through the air. When she realized that seemed to have little to no effect, she laughed.

"Well damn. Now what?" She asked herself. She tried to feel the weight of the spell. Usually most of it was directed at the shoulders and the body's own weight and balance kept you upright. How had Vanille managed to change it?

Fang hung perfectly still and felt her arms and legs droop only a little bit. Great. Vanille had majored the spell on her midsection.

"Fan-fucking-tastic." Fang muttered.

"I don't know if I agree with that but I'll admit if I was in that position it would be along those lines." Fang cursed inwardly but lolled her heads towards Lightning and gave her a lazy smile.

"Mornin' Light." She offered in greeting. Light was holding her cup of coffee, leaning against the doorframe one arm resting on the other. While her body appeared casual, you could make no mistake by looking at Lightning's face that she was completely pissed off.

"Care to explain why the hell you are floating?" Fang's face screwed up a bit, wincing at the words.

"Ah, well. I'm not good at explanations." Fang tried. Lightning still looked less than impressed.

"Try me." She said dryly, her eyes fixated on Fang's face.

"We've always had magic Light, even before we were l'cie. Look Vanille can explain it better. Didn't you find it strange my jaw wasn't broken? Or that we had no major injuries?" Lightning drank some of her coffee, processing. She had noticed, but was waiting for an explanation. Apparently Vanille had been waiting too and had had enough.

"I wondered." Lightning admitted, feeling slightly less angry.  
"So can only she do magic or?" She trailed off, letting curiosity take over.

"Naw, I can too. Vanille is just really good at healing. I'm terrible. Better at other things though. Look, I promise a full explanation when Vanille gets back. Will you help me get down? I can't stay like this all day." Fang felt pinned against the wall, floating helplessly as Lightning interrogated.

"Can't you do it?" Lightning asked lazily.

"I've never done this spell. It'll wear off after awhile or if you put enough force against it." Lightning sighed and set her coffee mug down on the dresser.

"I should really just leave you here." She threatened as she approached. Fang nodded.

"I was going to tell you Lightning, you know that. But what was a good way?" Fang's hand gestured and her voice went a bit higher as she enacted a fake conversation. "Hey Sunshine, we still got magic. We didn't tell you until now. Hooray, wanna go hunting?" Fang ended it with a huge faked smile and open palms. Lightning grinned slightly.

"I wouldn't have questioned it."

She reached out and grabbed Fang's hands and pulled.

"Liar." Fang muttered as Lightning pulled. Fang's body tilted downwards diagonally towards Lightning and she felt blood rush to her head and cause pain. Lightning held on and Fang begin to feel sick.

"Not helping." Fang commented. Lightning let go and Fang went back to her horizontal position, relieved. Lightning didn't bother with her legs, assuming the same thing would happen. Her mind kicked into a tactical mode and she grabbed Fang around the middle and pulled. The spell reacted and Fang's feet swung down towards the ground, but Lightning was lifted up hanging onto Fang. It happened so quickly that Lightning had only squeezed harder to hold on and her face was no pressed up against Fang's stomach.

"Not one word." She hissed out. Fang could feel the magic straining to support them both, but it still held them up. Lightning let go, dropping down gracefully and Fang's body swung horizontal again. Lightning paused and backed up. Fang's eye widened as she figured out what soldier girl was doing.

"Wait, Light, no!" Was all the Fang managed before Lightning came barreling at her like a rugby player with a grudge. She jumped and wrapped her arms around Fang again, this time the kinetic force aided her along with gravity and as they fell, the force of the jump pushed against the spell. Fang felt the magic snap as they tumbled to the floor.

"Fuck, Lightning, that hurt." Fang whined. Lightning had landed on top of Fang's stomach.

"Whatever." She picked herself up and grabbed her mug. "Stop whining and call Vanille."

Fang lay there, feeling bruises start to form. What a way to start the day.

….

Vanille, in fact was not going to the hospital but was instead going to see Hope. She had found wild fruit the other day and was bringing him that along with muffins created with a now ruined tin left for Lightning to discover.

She had already texted Hope on Lightning's phone, Snow had promised to get her one because she didn't know how long Lightning would be okay with this arrangement. Personally Lightning could care less about the phone but Serah would complain if she tried to get rid of it. It really only existed because work aka Brix threw it at her head and told her to use it.

Vanille waved at the guard on duty at the gate and happily gave him a muffin after he waved her on in after explaining she was there to see Hope. She wandered in, looking around at the buildings, shacks, barracks, and tents that made up the base.

"Vanille!" Hope appeared from the doorway of a barrack and started walking towards her.

"Good morning!" Vanille replied as Hope neared. "I don't think those tents will survive when winter comes."

"Winter?" Hope asked. He knew that Gran Pulse had winter but they had been here for so many months and the weather was still beautiful. Vanille nodded.

"It can get really cold and bitter. Ask Fang about the seasons, she always understood it more than I did. You'll need to have a heater or light a fire to keep those things warm." Hope nodded.

"I'll pass that along. Want to go sit down by the tree?" He pointed over to a large tree right next to the tin shack.

Vanille gasped as she looked in the direction he was pointing and began to run, dragging Hope along with her.

"What, what is it?" He sputtered out, startled by her sudden movements. Vanille didn't reply and just stared up into the dark green leaves of the old tree. A massive tree, its trunk split into two about a third of the way up and many spaced out branches that would make the tree no easy climb.

"It's still here! I was looking; I couldn't see it from the gate. I was worried they had cut it down." Excitement rang through her voice. Hope looked up at the ageing trunk and then to Vanille the question visible on his face. Vanille's wide smile beamed at him.

"Fang's grandmother planted this tree. Every wonder why this tree was out here in the open plain?" She gestured to their surroundings. "It's also where.." She paused and her smile faded. "It's not my story to tell and it's sad. But Fang will be happy that the tree still here. But that building is going to kill it. It's blocking the sunlight."

"Lightning and Fang are talking to Brix today. Maybe Fang can get Lightning to do something about it." Hope was glad the tree hadn't been cut down. There had been talk of removing it. The crown of the tree was tall enough to still be in the sunlight, but Hope noticed the lower branches didn't look very good.

"I hope so." Hope's phone began to ring and he looked at it.

"Lightning?" He held up the phone.

"Hello?" Vanille watched his face. Judging by Hope's reaction, Lightning was not happy. Hope was nodding and glancing at Vanille. "Phone's for you. Lightning sounds mad."

…

Vanille showed up after an hour, not pleased at being called. They sat down in the living room; Lightning had straightened it up though bottles were everywhere. Fang had taken an armchair while Vanille took the couch, Lightning was standing and Fang wondered if she ever would uncross her arms.

"Why do you two still have magic?" Lightning blurted out. Fang's eyes darted to Vanille, who suddenly looked a bit sheepish.

"Dibs out!" Fang called and Vanille stomped her foot in mock anger. She sighed and looked to Lightning.

"We always had magic. The strength and type varies from person to person." Lightning nodded, processing.

"So only Gran Pulse people have it."

"Course not." Fang scoffed and Lightning scowled. Vanille sent Fang a glare that was returned with hands going up.

"Lightning, everyone originated from Gran Pulse. Cocoon is full of people that had magic before. It's only a theory but my guess is that the Fal'cie suppressed it and no one minded because the technology they provided was a good trade off." Vanille explained.

"Problem is the suppressing magic can have negative kick backs. Vanille thinks that the first couple of generations might have had the magic drained from 'em, so people from Cocoon may not have magic at all anymore." Fang added.

"So when you become l'cie, you already knew how to use magic?" Fang laughed.

"Vanille did a little bit. She always had a knack for those things. I never had much talent, I think my magic is more strength based."

"It is. The first time you tried a fire spell, you burnt off your eyebrows" Lightning snickered and Fang looked horrified at Vanille. "Becoming l'cie simply increases the magic in you to impossible lengths. The fact that you had magic as a l'cie means you must have had it before. A latent power with generations of suppressing means it never emerged until they triggered it." Vanille paused and looked to Fang, who nodded.

"We think that everyone that was l'cie has traces of it because becoming l'cie opened a pathway that was blocked and if you practiced you might be able to cast spells again." Fang grinned and snapped her fingers. A flame lingered on the finger and she blew it out. Lightning stared.

"See, easy simply spells. Handy though." Fang repeated the trick. Vanille smiled.

"It's a matter of focusing. A Dia taught me. Healing is a different sort of magic."

"Who all knows this?" Vanille sighed.

"Hope because of Fang." Vanille accused

"You chose to interpret it that way." Fang replied. "Vanille is going to tell Serah, she had to put a hold on a snake bite. They have to know you can't normally do that." Lightning nodded, she had heard about the man who got bitten.

"Speaking of that, I have to meet her soon." Vanille turned to Lightning. "Sorry you had to find out this way, but Fang was being an idiot. I'll see you later." She waved brightly and flounced out of the room. Fang sighed.

"Sometimes I wonder about that girl."

"Would you really not have told me?"

"No, she's just pissed I threatened Hope." Lightning's face turned dark. "Hey, hey. None of that! You try to beat up Snow for going near Serah."

"Hope isn't Snow." Lightning defended. Fang scoffed.

'True." Lightning sat down in the other chair and looked to Fang.

"Could you teach me?"

"Magic? Maybe. I know you could heal decently and you'd have to get Vanille for that but I think I can show you one trick." Fang jumped up and scanned around. She ran upstairs and came down with her lance.

"Wait for it." Fang closed her eyes and opened them. Lightning stared in fascination as the lance lit up and flames danced on it. "This is more of a party trick, it's difficult to focus on in battle and doesn't have much of an effect. But if I do this." Fang paused and placed both hands on her lance concentrating.

Lightning watch as the flames flickered towards the ends and melded with the metal turning it a silvery blue.

"Imagine getting sliced with that." Fang commented and then the flames slowly died it. "Have to be careful with that one. It's really easy to ruin the blades."

"You think I could do that?"

"I think you could do something better." Fang swung her lance around. "This takes concentration, I usually only light one end but you." She stopped swinging. "Could call Odin." Lightning nodded, as she understood.

"So." Fang put the lance down and snapped her fingers lighting her index again. "See if you can do this, but with lightning."

"How? I can't just snap my fingers and make it work." Fang snapped her fingers again, thinking of how to explain.

"Remember being l'cie and feeling the magic flow? You just sort of knew what you wanted to do with it and did it? And as you practiced you got stronger? Just imagine concentrating that energy into your fingers. Don't focus on it being lightning, just energy."

"Why? What if it's something else?"

"Everyone has some sort of base element." They met eyes for a second.

"Snow is ice." They said simultaneously. Fang laughed.

"Exactly, and yours is lightning. Not just with the name, but because Odin was your summon." Fang explained. "Try it."

Lightning nodded and focused.

Snap.

Nothing. Her face turned to a look of determination. She was going to get this.

Snap.

Nothing. Fang snapped her own fingers again and the flame appeared. She blew it out and looked at Lightning.

"Come on, Light." Fang tried to be encouraging, but Lightning's anger wasn't helping.

"Maybe you suck at teaching." Lightning snipped back.

"Use that!" Fang yelled as she came to a realization.

"What?" Lightning glared, hiding her confusion with anger.

"Anger! It's one of the worst ways to fuel magic but once you get the feel you should be able to get away from that." Lightning raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously? Isn't that like encouraging me to join the dark side?"

"Come on Sunshine." Fang bit her lip, trying to hold back from making a dark side remark. "If you're so much better than me." Fang snapped her fingers and a tiny jolt of electricity flittered and died through the air. "Prove it." She grinned, her flashy canines showing, looking smug.

Lightning rolled her eyes. Maybe she should have asked Vanille to stay. Why was this so hard, she could almost feel the frustration gnawing at her brain. A thought occurred to her. Maybe this is what she could use? Frustration, annoyance and anger some directed at Fang but most at not being able to do the task. She attempted to place a mental 'harness' on the feelings and tried to change it into something. Like the magic she used to feel that was so instantaneous she never had time to question how it was produced.

Snap. Crack! Went the blue bolt of lightning that fizzled through the air and hit the floor leaving a black scorch mark.

"That's it!" Fang yelled enthusiastically. Lightning stared at the floor at the burn. "You'll be able to control it with practice, maybe even run it through Omega."

"Good." Lightning replied looking up. She glanced at her phone on the table. "Put on real clothes. Let's go see Brix."

…

Fang was animated and happy on the way over to the base. They brought along Iskote, Lightning said she refused to stay at work though but Fang knew that meant she would stay and work. Fang had already decided that she would take Iskote down to the beach and return in an hour after talking with Brix.

Lightning had attempted to put a leash on Iskote but Fang laughed and said not to bother. The dog was following them quite happily occasionally stepping on their heels.

Lightning was still deep in thought and Fang noticed that she snapped her fingers every so often. Fang was tempted to ask what she was thinking but decided against it. Lightning had taken it very well considering. Fang paused from her walking as the thought of Snow finding out soon. He would have an affinity for ice judging by his eidolon, Shiva.

She hurried to catch up with Lightning, who hadn't even noticed Fang had paused. What about Serah? She still didn't know the little Farron very well yet but noticed she had a spark about life that was similar to Lightning's.

Fang gazed around as they reached the base. She had seen it before, but only in the twilight and hadn't seen much. The location had been picked well, making use of the jagged rocks for defense. She turned to look at the buildings and as her head turned her walking slowed once more.

Lightning was in her own world, walking mechanically still trying to take in the idea of magic. It really wasn't that big of a shock, what Vanille and Fang had said made sense. But to have had magic and never known it before, it seemed cruel to find it out now. Another thing to thank their Fal'cie overlords for. She wondered if Serah who had only been a l'cie for such a short time would catch on to magic quickly.

She glanced at Fang as she noticed that she had stopped. Lightning slowed and looked in the direction Fang was staring.

"That's the tin shack. First building we made out here. It's just a bunch of offices but everyone wants to have their office there." Lightning supplied in a friendly tone. Fang made no attempt to respond and simply began to walk forward.

Lightning followed, letting curiosity to Fang's reaction take over. Fang ignored the building completely and went straight for the tree. She reached a hand out and pressed it against the bark. Her face was serene yet she retained a hint of sadness.

Lightning stayed silent, talking seemed like it would break the calm on Fang's face. She waited for Fang, leaning on the tin wall and occasional glancing at the woman. It was odd to see Fang in such a mood.

Fang looked up into the towering branches and smiled softly. She looked to the now stoic Lightning, who was pretending not to be concerned. The smile grew slightly and Fang tipped her head sideways towards the tree.

Lightning was almost dying to ask her the question but she held herself back. Fang gave in.

"My grandmother planted this tree." She said simply and suddenly her cocky grin was back. "Now why are we here? Challenge Brix to a drinking contest or something?" It was a terrible act Fang knew and hardly believable. Lightning nodded slowly.

"Don't be stupid." She snapped half-heartedly and turned away, heading towards the building's front doors. Fang followed, picking up Iskote and letting Lightning lead without another word.

Lightning felt herself go into a bit of turmoil as they winded their way through the dark, narrow halls. Fang was open about most things. Compared to Lightning, she was an open book. But Fang's sad smile face made Lightning feel like she was breaking in half. There had to be something more about that tree. She made a mental note in her mind to ask Fang one day. She knew for now, all she could do was make sure the tree remained alive and healthy.

….

Meeting with Brix proved uneventful. Brix laid out maps and Fang marked the best defense spots. Brix wanted both the lake watched and the side where they thought the Erewhon troops would approach from. Debating where to put them and how many people to use were the biggest problems.

When Fang grew bored, she excused herself taking Iskote with her. Lightning let her go, knowing it could be finished later. She brushed off Brix's questions and headed to her own desk that was thankfully not in the vicinity and finished off scraps of paperwork she had been ignoring.

A few hours later, she headed outside to find Fang sitting under the tree watching Iskote chase the soldiers running laps around the perimeter of the fence.

Fang lanced up at her as she approached and Lighting lifted a hand in greeting. She stood awkwardly for a second and as Fang began to speak, she quckly sat down beside her pressing her shoulder against Fang's.

Fang's mouth slowly closed and she smiled. Lightning refused to look at her and watched Iskote bark happily. Fang shrugged slightly and went back to watching the dog, letting some of her weight lean on Lightning.

….

Jihl thrashed her way through the bush as Clash easily maneuvered his way through. It was hot sticky and miserable, and she would be grateful when they reached open plain. No one had died yet, though they did have injuries from meeting with monsters on the way. She didn't remember signing up for this, as a new recruit she had always worked in cities and was promoted so quickly she had hardly done any grunt work like this except for two weeks of surviving that she was forced to attend at the academy.

Even with the battalion at her back, Jilh could only feel more anxiety as they neared their destination. She almost wanted to slow them up, make it stop but she knew that would only make it worse. Still, she knew what was coming and she had to face it eventually.

A pissed off Lightning Farron was something no one wanted to deal with.

…

Yep. Not dead.

As always thanks for all reviews, follows and favourites.


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